


The Sherlock Collection

by Jen (ConsultingWriters)



Series: Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU in places, Angst, As I could be here a long time otherwise, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Please see each fill for tags/warnings, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fill, Safe For Work, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 84
Words: 36,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingWriters/pseuds/Jen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Due to popular demand: My tumblr fills, now moved onto AO3!</p><p>This collection pertains to all fills that focus on the Sherlock universe. Slash, pre-slash, et cetera. All safe for work, but please heed warnings as they pertain to each fill. More fills can be found through the rest of my 'Prompt Fill' series. Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> http://consultingwriters.tumblr.com/ - This is the guilty tumblr. These fills are all mine (Jen) unless otherwise stated. Feel free to have a glance, and throw more prompts at me.
> 
> My longer prompt fills (ie, those which have multiple parts), NSFW prompts, 00Q prompts, and Bondlock prompts, can all be found in the rest of the series. I had to differenciate, or I'd lose track of what I'm doing!
> 
> Please see each fill for warnings. I have almost certainly forgotten to write in some warnings, in the melee. Please don't throw things at me, just remind me, and I'll pop them up.
> 
> Thank you kindly to everybody, especially those who have been supporting ConsultingWriters on tumblr, you guys are wonderful. Jen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reverse!Reichenbach John is the one who sacrifices himself to Moriarty, and goes on to destroy his crime empire. Sherlock is working in London (as far as Mycroft will allow him to go away) to try and do the same, but this mystery person is always 2 steps ahead. Reunion once everything is completed. - anon

“I’m sorry, Mr Holmes, but Sebastian Moran was reporting missing two days ago,” the voice on the phone told him. Sherlock’s forehead creased, as he listened to the dial tone; he had encountered this again and again, trying to bring down Moriarty’s criminal web. He was not allowed out of the country on Mycroft’s orders; he was apparently still on ‘relapse watch’, and Mycroft utterly refused to let him go anywhere.

He was very alone without John.

The thought sent a hammer of hurt into his chest, making his mind and soul implode with pain. He had never been emotionally tied to another before John; John had been a colleague, a friend. Somebody Sherlock could envisage a long while with, living together, remaining together in some capacity.

Moriarty had caused John’s death, and his own, and left a wrecked remnant of a once-proud man to attend the funeral of the closest friend he had ever known.

He had tried to track down the web. Somebody, however, was beating him to it. Each lead he found was being broken down before he could get to it. This was the final straw; Moran had been Moriarty’s right-hand man, the last link in the chain, the final one to remove. And he was already gone.

Sherlock sat back, stunned. He didn’t know where else to go now. It was over. Moriarty’s web was finished, its strands separated and destroyed, or damaged at least. Everything that had made Moriarty the criminal mastermind he was, had gone.

He had gone to destroy everything for one reason – John. Everything had been for John, and now it was finished, and he hadn’t even done it himself. He had let John down more acutely than he had thought himself capable of. Pathetic, really. The greatest mind the world should have known, and he could not even avenge a friend adequately, without Big Brother invading.

Mycroft had never really considered that Sherlock was at risk of suicide. He wasn’t really the type, to be fair. The loss of a friend was hardly cause to lose himself, and Sherlock simply thought too much of himself to throw it away casually.

Mycroft thought he had gone to reminisce. How little he knew of his own baby brother.

Sherlock stood on the edge of the roof, gazing at the pavement. John had shot himself on the roof, next to Moriarty’s body; he wanted to die here too, let himself fall, let himself die where John did. Such ridiculous sentimentality. Caring. He was better than this, he knew that, but he was damned if he could remember why.

“Sherlock?”

The voice was familiar. So familiar, like the one you dream of, the voice that lingers in your consciousness somewhere between sleep and awake, real but intangible. John. His John. The memories and immediacy of John Watson, Doctor John Watson, who had changed his life and taught him that life was not quite so obvious, or as mundane, as he had imagined. The man with whom he was never bored.

“John,” he murmured, as his vision started to swim. Confident hands held his shoulders, and Sherlock gasped slightly, knees buckling from beneath. “ _John_ ,” he repeated. A face swam in front of him, and Sherlock reached for it with just a flicker of desperation, and passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets louder and grumpier when he is sick, Sherlock gets quieter. This panics John. - anon

Sherlock hadn’t spoken in almost three days. Literally, barely a word out of his lips. While he often sunk into melancholic stupors, he was prone to at least the occasional catty comment, temper abrupt, throwing words like small missiles.

Now, he was saying absolutely nothing. Far from simply being ‘unlike him’, it was a completely unprecedented turn of events.

He had started by just talking less, noticeably less. Then, without warning, a complete cessation of any words, and negligible movement. All for no visible reason.

John was beginning to outright panic. “Sherlock?” he asked quietly, anxiously. “Are you alright?”

Sherlock looked up through baleful, sad eyes, and shrugged. His attention returned to the TV. He was watching Jeremy Kyle, and still hadn’t spoken a word. “Sherlock?” John asked again, leaning forward, placing a hand on Sherlock’s arm.

And then on his forehead. “Jesus Sherlock,” John yelped, yanking out a thermometer. Their body temperature differences notwithstanding, he was quite obviously feverous. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’re ill?!”

“M’not ill,” Sherlock rasped, voice almost inaudible. John cursed himself fluently; there was no way he should have let Sherlock languish as he had.

“Shut up. Symptoms?”

“No voice, head hurts, cold, throat hurts,” Sherlock rasped; John could, at least, depend on Sherlock’s honesty. “No non-prescriptions involved. I should be well by Thursday.”

“What day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

“Friday. You’re an idiot.”

Sherlock nodded pathetically, and John just snorted, and went to get painkillers, and to ask Mrs Hudson for the broth she could make which John could swear was sheer magic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Investigating the final moments of a client leads the boys to a fair where a teller tells John or Sherlock their future. Both are sceptical until it turns out to be true. - placeofold

“Sherlock, want a look?” John said, literally dragging Sherlock to a fortune-teller’s tent.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Sherlock whined. “You know I could do a better job than she could. Most of them have rudimentary observation skills, are able to divine the past, and as such extrapolate.”

John sighed. There was nobody around, no queues, and their mark wasn’t expected for another half hour or so. Sherlock was too prone to boredom to simply hang about doing nothing. “Don’t ruin it. Come on, we’ve got time to kill.”

“And money to waste, evidently,” Sherlock grumbled. John looked at him balefully, looking optimistically towards the fortune-teller. Sherlock rolled his eyes, and let John drag him closer to the bloody tent.

The woman smiled at them in a way that bordered on predatory. “ _The doctor and the detective_ ,” she murmured. “ _Delightful._ ”

“I can do that,” Sherlock muttered petulantly, hissing in pain as John slapped him, relatively hard.

“ _Good doctor, sweet doctor. Take your risk, today. You will know when. Your tall, dark, handsome stranger is no less strange, but he could be your own.  Time is ticking, you stand to lose that which you seek. If you choose to act, your life will be all you wished it to be._ ”

“It’s not a fortune, you’re trying to impart life lessons,” Sherlock muttered disconsolately; John slapped him again. John looked completely enraptured. Sherlock just rolled his eyes, as the fortune teller turned to him.

“ _The detective is sceptical, and hurting. Tell him the truth, young detective. You will be happy, if you do. If you deny what you are, it will lead to pain._ ”

Sherlock puffed exasperatedly. “And again…”

“ _The man you seek is waiting for you by the candyfloss machine_ ,” the fortune teller continued. It was impossible to sound mysterious while saying anything about a candyfloss machine, John decided. “ _His papers are in the left hand jacket pocket. The doctor will catch him first. The detective will catch up, and summon the Inspector you both share contempt for_.”

“A little unfair,” Sherlock whined.

“ _Go, or you’ll miss him_ ,” the fortune-teller smiled. John nodded sagely, and ducked out the tent. He knew exactly where the candyfloss machine was.

Sure enough, there the man was. John pounced on him, instantly finding the papers in the left-hand jacket pocket. He cackled. She was _right_. Sherlock arrived a moment later, already on the phone to Lestrade.

“Sherlock,” John managed, once their target was handcuffed. He sighed; Sherlock was impossible to get the attention of, once he had solved a case, and wanted praise. John grabbed his face, and kissed Sherlock with all the passion several years of sexual repression could hold.

Sherlock looked stunned. “I… John…”

“Oh Sherlock, for god’s sake, just kiss him back,” Lestrade muttered to himself. Sherlock flipped him the finger, quite petulantly, and returned his attention to John.

“John…”

“Yes?”

“Does this make me tall, dark and handsome?”

John rolled his eyes, repressed the urge the throw things at his head, and kissed him again for good measure.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During his time away cutting down Moriarty’s web Sherlock talks to John in his mind palace. While struggling through life in London, John dreams of Sherlock (this could be a link!fic or a psychic bond!fic, or it could just be a manifestation of their subconscious) - placeofold

_I’m safe, John. You should probably know that. I’m safe._

**Yeah, so am I. Mycroft’s being a twat about all of it. Where are you?**

_I can’t tell you that. I assure you, I will be back as soon as I can._

**Jesus, I miss you.**

_And you, John. Stay safe._

John woke with a strangled inhale, inches from sobbing. Sherlock. He couldn’t stop dreaming of Sherlock. Ever since Sherlock’s… ever since the Fall, he had spent his nights longing for sleep, to see him. Sometimes he was there, sometimes he wasn’t, but at least they could exchange gentle words for a few minutes and John could pretend.

Sherlock opened his eyes, an unfamiliar thrum of a tranquillity running through his body. He missed John more than he had imagined he would. Mycroft was keeping an eye on him, but Mycroft was known for being pretty useless when it came to looking after people.

He entered his mind palace, and spoke to John. The imprinted memories he had of his Doctor were enough to sustain basic conversations. Then John would slip away, or he would be distracted, and he had to re-enter the world, and wait for the moment when he could be back with John.

**I think Mycroft must be paying my rent.**

_Yes, he mentioned he might – I registered that I would prefer to return to 221B, and also, I know you love the flat. I didn’t want you to have to move out._

**Cheers. I thought I’d have to find another flatshare.**

_Impossible. I would rather your pride suffer, and Mycroft pay._

**Point taken. When are you coming home?**

_As soon as I can._

-

Days slipped into weeks, and months. John returned to work, Sherlock killed more people than he wanted to think about, both continued their lives. John met a woman, Sherlock didn’t speak to another friendly person in four months, not in person, anyway.

They spent their nights lying somewhere quiet and safe, speaking to one another, entirely unaware that the conversation was more than dreams, or indeed mental projections.

Every night:

**When are you coming home?**

And finally, after three years and one week and two days, the response:

 _I’m coming, John. I’m coming home_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again me, sorry! Do you write Johnlock? I saw that you write Bondlock and I really need someone to write this -my write skills in english are zero. So, you know that everyone puts centric-John Post-Reichenbach very angst? Why not Sherlock-centric? I mean, it really hurts to him lying to John? And if he sees John begin happy again without him but with Mary? THAAAAANK YOU. (And if you don't write Johnlock, oh, just pass by, it doesn't really matters. Thank you anyway! *sends love*) - speaksarcastically

Sherlock watched John with all the passion and fervency that Mycroft did, when watching his younger brother.

John was… alright. He was by no means happy, but he was alright. He was living, he was existing, he was getting through each day, without Sherlock. His grief was tangible and horrible, and abated eventually, as could be expected.

Sherlock just began to stalk him, with mounting insanity.

He needed John to be safe. He _needed_ John. More than he knew, more than he realised. He wouldn’t be upset, sad, emotional – but god, he would make sure his friend was safe. He was allowed to do that, he could, he _had to_.

Mary Morstan was what broke his heart. John met her after about eleven months, and Sherlock knew, even if John didn’t. Something flickered to life, something that had been gone for a while; Sherlock’s breath caught, and he turned off his computer, unwilling to watch.

He turned everything back on again as quickly as possible, and watching a relationship unfold. The way John’s fingers lingered on her arm, her lips breathed in his ear; John fell in love by degrees, and Mary loved him too. They started dating after a few months. John kissed her goodnight. They slept together after another few weeks.

John told her he loved her, and Sherlock – in a small commune in Israel at the time, keeping cover – literally _screamed_.

Yet he was safe, he was happy. He truly _was_ happy. Sherlock wasn’t allowed to be jealous, he had left John of his own volition. To keep him safe, yes, but he had to let John live his life. Now he was, John was going and forgetting Sherlock, loving Mary, going through each day, days and days and days passing.

This was killing him.

A year, year and a half, two years. Sherlock was now rail-thin, angular and frantic. Mycroft was concerned, and rightfully so, and John was living through each day, and had bought a ring.

Sherlock knew what that meant. He buried his head in his hands, and didn’t allow himself to voice the scream that simply refused to leave his head any more. Everything in his life was pitched on a screech of denial, of desperation. John was his friend, his closest friend, his everything, and he was going to lose him.

He couldn’t go back yet, he was nowhere near done. John was in danger, if he tried to go back. This was the only way he could keep John safe.

_My condolences, dear brother – MH_

“Piss off, Mycroft,” Sherlock rasped at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of _his_ John Watson, marrying the woman he told himself he loved.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could you do a fic where John is fighting in Afghanistan and has an army dog named Sherlock? And the dog has Sherlock's personality and saves his life a few times? Also possibly include Bondlock and/or Johnstian??? ((love your blog btw)) - anon

“Sherlock, _heel_.”

The dog shot John a look of such blatant contempt that it made him pause, for a moment. Really, canines should not have the capacity for that type of expression.

Sherlock did, however. Sherlock always had. From the moment John had met Sherlock, the dog had taken an immediate liking to him; in most dog terms that would involve excitement, sniffing etc. In Sherlock’s case, it was simply that he deigned to sleep next to John, and didn’t snarl at him for no evident reason.

“Get the dog under control,” Bond sighed; Bond, John’s commanding officer, was more than prepared to tolerate the animal, on the proviso that it didn’t get in the way.

Sherlock didn’t like Bond. John found this absolutely _hilarious_.

In any case, Sherlock was evidently unhappy about something. He was pacing around in frenetic circles, growling slightly, trying to seek out somebody’s attention; when John finally paid Sherlock attention, John could have _sworn_ the damn thing rolled his eyes with an expression that said _finally, you idiot_.

Regardless, John sighed, and committed himself to chasing a dog around for a little while. Sherlock barrelled off into the distance, John trying to keep up – Sherlock had no conception of the phrase ‘active war zone’ – and ended up screeching to a stop.

Sherlock sniffed at the ground. Pawed at it, as though trying to indicate something. “What is it, boy?” John asked; another rather contemptuous glare, and Sherlock howled.

John examined the ground more closely. He paled, a moment later, scrambling backwards, radioing back the way he had just come. “I think we have a mine, over,” he called in.

The bomb disposal team were called in; Sherlock spent the duration of the day looking ridiculously smug, and barking at anybody with turn-ups on their trousers for reasons John couldn’t fathom.

It was Sherlock. Nobody ever quite understood Sherlock.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Prompt: Sherlock meets Victor Trevor again. (and in my personal headcanon Victor somehow looks like James D'Arcy) that would be so lovely! keep on writing.. your stories are so good!!!!! :-) - anon

“Your Browning?” Sherlock asked, quite calm; John nodded, a slight indication towards his trouser pocket. Sherlock’s smile quirked abruptly, eyes glinting in the semi-darkness. “I would equip it,” he said excitedly, and pushed through the door.

John had never witnessed Sherlock come crashing to a halt quite so abruptly. From the thrill of the chase, he literally stopped in his tracks. “Victor?” he asked; John could honestly say Sherlock emoted more in those two syllables than John had heard from him in entire _conversations_.

The man stared back, eyes wide.

Sherlock was usually wholly inscrutable; his entire being screamed to hide emotion behind carefully constructed veneers, not this, a raw nerve teetering painfully on the edge of collapse.

“Sherlock?” John asked, after an odd moment. “Sherlock, we do need to get moving…”

“John, Victor,” Sherlock said, waving between the two, not taking his eyes off Victor, reading every microsecond of the preceding decade, tracking back to the last time he’d seen Victor.

“My god, Sherlock… You look… a lot better than I last saw you, I can tell you that,” Victor managed; still trying to take in the sight of Sherlock in his office. “How’ve you been?”

Sherlock’s façade was making a valiant attempt at re-establishing itself; his tone was very slightly brusque: “Good, good. Yourself?”

“Yeah, all fine,” Victor replied gently. He looked between John and Sherlock, asking a question with the faintest of expressions; Sherlock shook his head minutely, inspiring a wide smile. “Hey, take this,” he said, reaching into his jacket and finding a small square of card. “I know you’re busy, and I’m not going to ask what you’re doing in this office, but… call me, Sherlock. It’s been a while.”

John just noticed the very slight hitch of breath when their skin brushed. He couldn’t help the feeling of bone-deep jealousy and loss that set in, almost instantly.

“Speak soon,” Sherlock said, almost like a promise. “Come on, John.”

-

“My partner in university,” Sherlock said in short, clipped sentences. “We were together for almost a year. I was heavily addicted to cocaine at the time. Victor was terrified, broke it off, refused to watch me die. Mycroft intervened and sent me to rehab. Last I saw of Victor was our last argument, when he left. I overdosed that evening.”

In however-many months of knowing Sherlock, John had never found out this much information about the man’s past. Sherlock’s enigma revolved around keeping his life a secret – the important parts, anyway.

“You loved him,” John said gently, staring into his tea.

Sherlock glanced up at him, scandalised. “Love is a ridiculous sentimental attachment. We were close, he was a confidante. My first true friend.”

John doesn’t need Sherlock to say it to know that he once loved. The guarded, acerbic being that is Sherlock lost himself to drugs; more importantly, he lost somebody he cared for. Mycroft’s interference took on a new meaning, Sherlock’s melancholic refusal to engage in relationships.

“Call him,” John urged, and allowed his own heart to very slightly, almost imperceptibly, break.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the great and glorious placeofold, who’s had a crap week and asked for “comforting, warm… romantic but asexual Sherlock, and loving/understanding John. Bumped up for you darling, I hope life picks up and improves <3 all my love, my inbox is always open. Take care, be safe. Jen.

There was always something untouchably, perfectly _honest_ about having Sherlock lying over him, head resting in John’s lap, their fingers twined together loosely in a way neither of them ever discussed.

Sherlock was not adept at handling emotion, never had been. Emotion tended to fester for him, impossible to ever properly remove. John knew he couldn’t help, when Sherlock was in this state; he would linger on the edges of awareness, lost in his thoughts and emotions, until he could emerge and pretend nothing had happened.

John’s hands played idly in Sherlock’s hair, a thumb rubbing repetitively over Sherlock’s temple, a quietly comforting gesture.

He just watched TV for a few hours, let Sherlock stay quiet. He accepted Sherlock’s quietness, his melancholy, and didn’t press for anything more, when Sherlock simply couldn’t give him anything.

Eventually, Sherlock began to emerge. John knew how to tell, now; Sherlock would shift, almost imperceptibly. As John looked down, the somehow clouded green-blue of Sherlock’s eyes would start to clear, becoming sharper, the glinting brilliance of Sherlock’s intelligence reappearing.

“You alright?” John asked, when the clouds were almost gone, when Sherlock’s eyes had reached the fathomless obscurity John was so accustomed to.

Sherlock smiled, very faintly. It was more of a notional thing, but John loved it regardless; it was something for John, just for John, something understated and beautiful.

John always felt the dim surge of relief when Sherlock’s deep, velvet voice murmured _yes_ , and John knew he was almost back. A minute or two more of this, of Sherlock leaving himself vulnerable, before the masks and anger and resentment reasserted themselves.

These moments were some of John’s favourites. Sherlock, letting himself be; it had taken months before he had surrendered. Even now, John sometimes had to remind him, coax Sherlock into dealing with his own brain before he burned out in spectacular, shooting-star style.

In the last seconds, John pressed a chaste kiss to Sherlock’s forehead. Sherlock still managed to twitch out a smile, before everything clarified, solidified.

Sherlock sat up abruptly. John stretched out his legs, letting circulation return to the numb flesh; Sherlock vanished into the kitchen without another word, the familiar clatter of experiments, petri dishes, something in a tin that John didn’t want to enquire too closely about.

John almost thought he had been forgotten.

Sherlock poked his head out the door, and smiled at him. Grateful, soft, infinitely loving in the ways only Sherlock could communicate. He was gone after only a single heartbeat, easily missed, easily forgotten, the echo of him lingering in the doorway, beautiful and momentous and all John’s.

John watched the TV without seeing, and smiled to himself.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 00Q cufflinks fill is adorable! Can the same be done for Sherlock and John? For some reason I’m seeing Sherlock as the one getting and wearing the cufflinks. Love the fills! – anon

The first set came on a date that seemed almost arbitrary to Sherlock, who really didn’t set much store by anniversaries, and hadn’t really realised that it was precisely six months since he had John had embarked on what was colloquially known as a ‘relationship’.

The box was left on top of his closed laptop. Sherlock glanced over it curiously; John had gone out for groceries, and he didn’t wear cufflinks.

He and John had gone shopping about a week previously, actually. John had coerced him into buying a shirt that required cufflinks, given that his favourite white shirt had met with something of an accident in the Thames.

Now, it seemed, he had cufflinks. A simple ‘S’ and ‘H’, uncomplicated, elegant. “John,” he called imperiously, staring at the cufflinks. No answer. Ah yes, John had gone out.

Sherlock stared at the cufflinks. How curious.

He quickly dived into his mind palace, finding the bedroom where he kept all memories pertaining to John. He had his answer a few minutes later; six months since the consummation of their relationship, a period John clearly found of sentimental value, and marked with a gift. Planned, given the shirt incident the previous week.

It was with no small amount of smug satisfaction that Sherlock greeted John, not looking up from his experiment. “Would you like to go to dinner tonight?” he asked, dispassionate, glancing up for a short moment.

John blinked, starting to smile. “Yep, sounds good,” he said, settling in his armchair with a newspaper.

Sherlock wore the cufflinks that night, and John didn’t stop grinning.

-

The cufflinks became a fixture. Emphatic dates that Sherlock was liable to forget were pre-empted by cufflinks. Either John managed to surprise him – very rarely – or Sherlock had a few days warning when John unsubtly visited a jeweller’s, or bought them off the internet, a small package arriving in the post that signposted something important.

Sherlock managed to get them tables at restaurants, tickets to films, even book them to see some band or other that John was fond of, and Sherlock – while considering the whole affair banal – even attended with minimal complaint.

As time wore on – their first anniversary, the anniversary of when they met, bizarre things that Sherlock had no hope of remembering without prompting – Sherlock developed a decent collection.

Twin violins, and - even better - a burgeoning collection of elements off the periodic table (the first two being francium, after the most explosive element in the periodic table, and helium, after the most stable. John meant it as a metaphor, which promptly sailed over Sherlock’s head). He was now collecting the halogens.

He also had a lot of shirts. None of which had buttons.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah… Sherlock Prompt… Because I like Mycroft: So… Sherlock and Mycroft asleep on the couch. Why? Well that’s something John would like to know as well… =D – anon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A confession: I am a Holmescest shipper. But. I know a lot of people are not, and I wasn’t sure if you wanted Holmescest. So it is implied.

It was the single least plausible thing John had ever seen in his life.

Sherlock was not a very tactile creature. He ignored most forms of physical contact, preferring cerebral battles to the press of human skin against his own. He very rarely slept either, tended to either doze when his body cut out, or sleep like the dead after a long case, occasionally spanning a full day of unconsciousness.

He also detested his brother.

Mycroft was, more simply, probably the most intimidating human being John had ever met. In a wonderfully insidious way, the man could creep under one’s skin, with a casual familiarity, intensity, intelligence that was actively frightening. He showed up Sherlock’s own formidable intellect on a regular basis.

John had never been able to imagine him sleeping. He couldn’t really imagine Mycroft doing _anything_ particularly human. He simply wasn’t the type. The man existed in a haze of unnerving calm, understated power, and implication.

For every single one of the above reasons, John had never expected to find the pair of them curled up on his couch. Mycroft had his arms looped around Sherlock, his brother pressed against the back of the sofa, caged by Mycroft’s protective form.

John cleared his throat slightly.

Sherlock sat up so fast he nearly knocked Mycroft off the sofa, the most startled John had ever seen him. Mycroft somehow retained every ounce of his poise, elegantly settling upright, stretching out his back slightly. “Doctor Watson,” he said, his usual smooth tone. “A pleasure to see you again.”

John blinked.

“You…”

“Oh John, do try not to look quite so shocked,” Sherlock said disparagingly, reclaiming his usual demeanour with a little difficulty while Mycroft shifted, putting a more acceptable distance between them. “Mycroft is my sibling, regardless of personality defect…”

“… charming as usual, Sherlock,” Mycroft cut over, in a mildly chastising tone.

“… And I have been experiencing what many would define as an ‘emotionally trying’ few days,” Sherlock completed, stubbornly dragging Mycroft closer in a way that indicated that physical intimacy was not wholly foreign to the pair. “Ergo, I sought my brother.”

John was honestly confused. “Emotionally trying?” John echoed, as Mycroft’s hand sought Sherlock’s, a gentle insinuation.

Sherlock watched him, gaze merciless. “Indeed,” he drawled. “My mother died, three days ago.”

Of course, the bastard hadn’t thought to _tell_ John that. “Christ, I’m so sorry…”

Mycroft waved a hand, cutting him off. “Don’t think too much on it, doctor Watson,” he said genially, while Sherlock literally lay back in his lap, ignoring John entirely. “Sherlock merely required support from a family member. You understand.”

Not phrased as a question. John couldn’t really help but nod.

He couldn’t shake the sensation that there was something he wasn’t being told, however, as Sherlock nuzzled against his brother’s lap, Mycroft’s hand trailing through his hair.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello. Will you please do a johnlock drabble with insecure!john? Thank you! - anon

“… the texture of the dirt indicates damper soil; there is an unmistakeable scent of ammonia, so our killer tried to remove the evidence, but forgot that his shoes would be indicative of…”

John was listening, but had been subjected to the first run-though of this particularly deductive process twice already, and could feel himself slipping out of concentration; he was brought back to startling, unfair attention by the inimitable figure of Sally Donovan.

“You’re just his audience, aren’t you?” she said, with slightly malicious interest. “You don’t help; you’re just there to tell him how clever he is, aren’t you?”

A sigh; John was accustomed to Sally’s vitriol, and honestly, was a long way from impressed. “Not now,” he said simply.

He was tired. The case had taken several days, and Sherlock – after several days of sleep deprivation and no food – had been nigh on impossible. John could only handle so much of Sherlock, when occupied on a busy case; while Sherlock was never a shining example of tact or sensitivity, he usually had at least _something_ to recommend him as a human being.

Not, it would seem, when tired or hungry or stressed or all of the above. Sergeant Donovan’s helpful aside was not exactly improving John’s mood either.

He was accustomed to be being considered useless. As compared to the towering presence of Sherlock Holmes, he was transparently outclassed; smart, not nowhere near Sherlock’s brilliance. A conductor of light, nothing more.

It became hard, after a point, to be constantly inferior. John didn’t mind, not logically or rationally, but he was a human being with an ego. At least, he had been, before life with Sherlock Holmes had persistently and effectively broken his ego down into something unrecognisable.

Afterwards, Sherlock watched him, his expression contorted with that expression John had internally nicknamed the ‘John is doing something peculiar’ face. “Yes?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at Sherlock.

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “Posture dejected, tone weary with a touch of defensive tension; you are upset.”

“Well done,” John remarked, a little acerbically. Sherlock continued to watch him; John knew from experience that the man wouldn’t damn well leave it alone now, so he conceded defeat before Sherlock tried to insist. “Donovan simply highlighted my irrelevance in your work, is all.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You’re certainly irrelevant to me if you’re still listening to anything that woman has to say. She’s a waste of oxygen, the world would benefit from her eradication,” the younger man mused, those bloody unearthly eyes still staring. “You believe yourself irrelevant, John?”

“Obviously,” John retorted, in a bitter mimicry of Sherlock’s own tone.

John was honestly surprised when Sherlock kissed him. The man very rarely demonstrated anything about their relationship in public, disliked it being a known fact.

Sherlock also knew that words meant little to a man like John Watson. He set store by actions, behaviours. Sherlock would never convince him through tricks of rhetoric, so he did the only thing possible; demonstrated in a physical, intimate way that John Watson was important. Ultimately indispensible, in fact.

It was not everything, and it did not alleviate John’s feelings; but it was a gesture, and a good one at that.

John smiled slightly, rolled his eyes unnoticeably. At least he was never bored.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I adore your writing and I just think you are great. So here is my request thing: Sherlock (8) and Molly (7) are best friends. John moves to where they live and he becomes the first one to ever get accepted into their gang. From then on the three are inseperable. Thanks in advance, I know it’ll be great :) – deductability

The boy was crouched in a tree, almost invisible. If it hadn’t been for the blonde girl calling up to him, John wouldn’t have even known he was there. It was really, really hard to see him.

“Sherlock?” the girl called, looking slightly plaintive, blonde hair in a neat ponytail. “You said…”

“Shh, I can observe better from here,” the boy replied, in a high, rather upper-class accent. Sherlock. Weird name. John shrugged to himself and stepped closer, looking at the boy.

Dark hair, roundish face, very beautiful for a boy. He was almost girly, with a long coat, very white skin that made his face look like the moon in the trees. John couldn’t see his eyes. “What’s your name?” Sherlock called down to the new boy.

“John,” John replied.

Sherlock was a whole eight years old. John looked like he might be eight too. This would be bad, if he was. He was nice, though. Plain and ordinary. A new boy, would be starting school with them in a couple of days, presumably. Lived right in the middle of town. “You don’t seem too inept,” Sherlock said, tone grandiose. “How old are you?”

“Eight.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “When’s your birthday?”

“September ninth,” John replied proudly; he was the biggest in his class at his old school, his birthday right at the beginning of term. Molly’s eyes widened; he was older than _Sherlock_. “You?”

Unsurprisingly, Sherlock didn’t reply. He glared at John, testing him. “You were bullied at your old school. It’s why you left. You like the army, too. Possibly family in it.”

John’s eyes were wide as saucers. “How…?”

“You stand really straight, you’ve been taught to by family. You’re in a new place, but you didn’t try to talk to us. People aren’t always nice to you, then. You jumped when I asked your name.”

“Wow,” John said reverentially, while Sherlock preened himself; he came very close to toppling out of the tree in the process, John darting forward to try and catch him in case he did while Molly watched in vague fear.

Sherlock was impressed. John looked like he could be an asset. “That’s not what most people say,” Sherlock noted cautiously, staring down at the new boy.

John blinked. “What they normally say?”

“Go away,” Sherlock replied simply. People didn’t like him being clever. Mycroft said it was because they were jealous, because they weren’t as clever, and wished they could be half as clever as he was. Sherlock agreed.

John didn’t want to go away. Nor did he want Sherlock to go away. Like Molly, he seemed happy to stay.

Sherlock slithered down from the tree, gangly limbs finding strong branches, landing on the floor in a feline heap. “Would you like to join our gang?” he asked, indicating himself and Molly.

John _beamed_. “Yes,” he said quickly, nodding. “Please.”

Sherlock looked him up and down, still assessing him fully. Molly looked very excitable indeed, grinning at John, waving shyly when John looked at her.  “Welcome to the gang, John,” Sherlock said smugly, and smirked.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hey, don’t know if this is up your alley or not. Reincarnation fic. John is able to remember his past lives but always ends up meeting Sherlock too late, or he only gets a short amount of time with him before they are ripped apart. John tries to carry on with his lives, but ends up following Sherlock. Cue current times, John thinks he has escaped his curse, but Reichenbach happens, however Sherlock is not really dead. Ending could be really angsty or really H/C with loads of C I’m not fussed =) - placeofold

The first few times were just unfortunate. War, pestilence; their life expectancies were too short to allow them access to one another. They were doomed to meet in their mid-thirties onwards. For the first few incarnations, neither lived that long.

Thus the first _real_ time they encountered one another, Sherlock was being hanged for heresy.

John was just amongst the crowds, watching a straight-backed man yell out at the world, looking mad, eyes suddenly landing on John. Sherlock – although John hadn’t known his name, then – just stopped, abruptly stopped, looking at John.

John didn’t watch him die.

-

Another time. John was a plague healer, dressed in customary robes, trying to pretend he knew how to heal the millions that were dying in droves.

Sherlock was a young man, delirious and screaming, fighting as death pulled him under and he screamed about dust mites and specks and minute, unnoticeable aspects of the world. John stayed with him, tried to help him the only ways he knew how.

The man died a day later. John himself didn’t last the month.

-

The next time, and John was in another army, another era.

John met Sherlock at the coast. Most were suspicious of him, believed him a sorcerer for the things he somehow knew. John had spoken to him, and the whip-thin man had trailed curious fingers over John’s face, blue eyes terrifyingly intense.

Halfway through the voyage, John contracted dysentery, dead before he reached France.

-

It was during Queen Victoria’s reign that they finally had some true time. John had known Sherlock through so many different parts of his lives, waited each lifetime to meet him again. This time, John was working as a doctor, consulted to an upper-class home to attend to a well-renowned politician named Mycroft Holmes.

When he was invited to tea with the other members of the household, in recompense for his services, he met Sherlock again.

 They had precisely three months. Enough time to learn about one another; Sherlock’s acerbity and intelligence and madness and brilliance, John’s loyalty and stubbornness and mercy.

Sherlock had a type of madness, a darkness in his soul, something untouchable, that couldn’t be easily healed with John’s sporadic entries to his life. He took his own life, the ultimate blasphemy, leaving John behind.

-

John didn’t like thinking about the world wars.

-

The man at the desk was familiar. Awe-inspiringly so. John walked in on his dodgy leg and a bullet elsewhere, and stared slightly as Sherlock – his brilliance clarified after centuries of misuse – read each aspect of him. Not a heretic, not a madman; a genius, in the purest sense.

They had months, so much _time_.

John watched Sherlock Holmes die again, for the nth time, and felt himself splinter further apart than any previous death. He knew Sherlock, now, better than before. Better than their stolen moments, the short hours and precious minutes. Several months of constant proximity, being constantly linked to the one creature who cropped up in every version of history, every single incarnation, under guises and names and masks.

Reincarnate, and he would see Sherlock again.

The ultimate blasphemy.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I have this craving that just can’t seem to be sated. I want Sherlock to be surprisingly understanding about Mary and John, all the while his heart breaking just a smidge, and then Mary realizing and being like, you idiot, just tell him! Idk why, but I really want to see that x.x Thank you!!!!!!! :D:D:D:D – blueskycloud9

His return had been fine. John had punched him, unsurprisingly, nearly splitting his knuckles in the process and neatly breaking open cartilage in Sherlock’s nose to send it streaming gore.

The worst part was coming home, and seeing a life that had long ceased to encompass him. While John could hardly have been expected to mourn indefinitely, a part of Sherlock had hoped he couldn’t be moved on from so quickly, to leave naught but a skull and a violin as his legacy in 221B Baker Street. He could only pray that he’d left more of an imprint in John himself.

He knew about Mary, of course. John’s marriage. His life, moving on, finding somebody he loved and who loved him, who would look after him and care for him; Mary was a tonic, had entered his life when John needed her most.

She was sweet enough. Clever, had a spine, had a life to her. A good match, a good type of person for John. Sherlock wanted to hate her, he really did, but simply couldn’t; she was clever enough to be diverting, not objectionable, caring and tender and took no bullshit.

Three years, and Sherlock missed John terribly, wanted more, wanted John every second he could – not stolen by Mary. He couldn’t remove her, merely watched John reach an approximate state of happiness, disinclined to touch, to interrupt the contended stasis his closest – only – friend had reached.

Mary caught him watching once in a while, raised an eyebrow slightly while Sherlock stared back, unflinching, trying to intimidate her out of noticing.

“You love him,” she murmured, settling across the table from Sherlock. He was engaged with chemicals and what promised to be a minor explosion. Sherlock nearly dropped his pipette. Mary didn’t wait for an answer, smiling sadly. “Oh, Sherlock.”

“It doesn’t matter,”” Sherlock replied firmly. “He loves you. He’s married to _you_.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “You can be surprisingly idiotic,” she noted, almost as though she found Sherlock’s stupidity endearing. “John cares for me a great deal, loves me to a degree – but he’s spent years mourning you. He was depending on something like this, he told me as much. I knew that. I loved him because he was incomplete, and I filled the gap, for a time. With you back, he’s whole again. It’s… we’re over, and we both know that.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, expression still customarily cold. “Ergo..?”

“Talk to him,” Mary advised, only a soft shadow of sadness. “Tell him, for both of your sakes. Please.”

Mary reached out, a hand placed on Sherlock’s, pipette dangling loosely in his fingers. He watched her like she was a foreign animal, something he stood no hope of understanding, or fighting against with any success.

“Thank you,” he murmured, with tangible honesty.

Mary smiled, squeezed his fingers. “You men are just terrible,” she tutted with a soft smile, and popped the kettle on.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnlock prompt! Irene Adler is bored of laying low. She decides to seduce Sherlock for fun. Sherlock is highly amused with her attempts and either a) strings her along and then makes out with his boyfriend John or b) uses her to make John jealous! – blueskycloud9

If she was wearing even slightly less, Irene would have been arrested for public indecency long before reaching 221B Baker Street. As it happened, while outside, she was so heavily cloaked it was impossible to tell what _gender_ she was; she stepped through the threshold of 221B, and was – in a whirl of fabric – near enough naked once again.

Sherlock took one look at her, and knew she had come for him. Her little exile had grown stale, and she was seeking interest somewhere, through the usual amusement of shock and pushing boundaries, especially with somebody she had once mockingly called a virgin. She would use him for amusement, quite simply speaking.

John, in the corner of the room, took stock of Irene; once the shock had died down, and he’d rolled his eyes, he couldn’t help but enjoy himself. Sherlock had a lovely vengeful streak in him from time to time, and when it came to his sexuality, he disliked the mockery. Mycroft did it enough by himself.

Irene pressed her body intentionally closer, and Sherlock, in an act of pure mimicky, did the same; her smile took on a genuine edge, only slightly tainted by malice, and Sherlock’s expression remained challengingly impassive.

When her lips came closer, Sherlock deflected, breath running across her throat. “Still shy and retiring?” she asked daringly, glancing over at John, winking. He gave her nothing to work off, which was quite alright; she just focused on Sherlock, instead, in every way she could find.

“John, could I borrow you a moment?” Sherlock asked flippantly, still watching Irene carefully; her head tilted curiously to one side, intrigued, almost excited, not breaking eye contact for a moment.

John stood obligingly, heading towards Sherlock; Irene broke contact to grin at him, all teeth, as he moved closer.

Sherlock abruptly yanked John downwards, kissing him with pure fire, a display of passion that was familiar and known. They moved in ways that orientated around one another, pre-empted their desires, avoided all unwelcome tendencies.

Irene moved like she had been scalded. “Ah,” she said quietly, her voice far steadier than any other part. “Doctor Watson, I did wonder if you ever would,” she continued, calm, tension sliding easily from her body. “Congratulations.”

John looked a little abashed at their demonstration. Sherlock, on the other hand, looked like a cat with the proverbial canary, hand still possessively looped around John’s forearm. “Hmm. I’ll let Jim know, he’d be delightedly.”

Sherlock’s eyebrow raised eloquently. “James Moriarty is dead,” he returned confidently, a low rumble.

Irene Adler. The Woman. The only person to somehow sideswipe Sherlock every time, no matter what he did, no matter what tricks he stored up his sleeve. “Somebody should really tell him that,” she said with a wicked grin, eyes sparkling as she shifted closer to the door. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

She was long gone in seconds.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you do a fem!lock prompt where Jo(John) is self conscious of her body compared to Sherlock and Sherlock has to comfort her?? Thank you so much! Keep writing! – anon

Jo glanced over herself, feeling a sadness she hadn’t felt since teenagedom, watching herself in a mirror and praying for somebody else’s form.

She wasn’t ugly, not quite. There were just so many imperfections it began to make her vision blur, cataloguing the unsightly bumps over her hips, the indents, the flab where muscle post-Army had faded out. Not fat, but hardly thin, hardly _beautiful_.

Sherlock, by comparison, was simply sublime. Their relationship notwithstanding, Sherlock was a very beautiful woman; immensely thin, but not shapeless or truly boyish. Beautiful breasts, a waist, legs shaped by running through London, hair in a flat sweep to just beneath her shoulder blades.

Her face was the most unique part. Cheekbones and nose and forehead, unbelievably clear skin, oceanic gaze in the blue-green eyes.

By comparison, Jo was truly plain. Shorter, dumpier. Her hair was flat, a grubby-looking blonde, face chubby, body worse. She was nothing, compared to Sherlock.

“You are aware that staring will achieve nothing?” enquired a voice from behind her, snapping Jo out of her reverie; Sherlock smiled faintly, moving closer, glancing over Jo’s body with a critical eye that made Jo feel like every part of her was being analysed.

“An accident when you were small,” she said quietly, pointing to a scar on Jo’s ankle. “Self harm, you never tried again,” at a small scar on her thigh, an uneven smear of burn from a single match. “Afghanistan is everywhere,” she continued, fingers light as she trailed over the shoulder, the slightly marred breast tissue, the habitual tilt of weight on the left side from a psychosomatic limp that still lingered in the psyche. “You and I,” continued, in the cloth-covered nipples, the indent of her waist. “Your life is painted in your body. I would be devastated if something were to happen to it.”

Jo smiled faintly, turning away from the mirror slightly to look at Sherlock properly. “I…”

“Do you think I’m a freak?” Sherlock asked plainly, gaze merciless.

Jo’s face fell. “Shit, Sherlock _no_ , obviously…”

“Other people are not always accurate, in their perceptions of people,” Sherlock continued, cutting over Jo’s words; Jo froze slightly, seeing Sherlock’s point, wondering how to express how _this_ was different. “Do not concern yourself with the other idiots. They will always find ways to cause distress. If it was not this, it would be something else.”

Jo sighed slightly, Sherlock linking arms around her back. “I know. I…”

Sherlock kissed her softly, and words fell apart in her mouth. It didn’t matter, at the end of it all. Sherlock loved, in the way Sherlock did everything; eccentrically. She simply couldn’t understand why other people – who they had established were idiots – would make any different.

The more Jo thought about it, the more she was inclined to agree.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I loveloveloveloveloveloveloooooooove your fills! They always make me smile (unless they make me wanna cry) and could you please do a Practical Magic AU! Character placement is aall up to you! Thankies! :) – inky-brown-eyes

Mycroft ambled downstairs to find his little brother half-dancing around the greenhouse, hysterical in motion, picking petals and leaves and thorns and throwing them together, muttering to himself.

“Brave, obviously, and honest” he started, grabbing a white petal. “Not boring. Can beat Mycroft at Scrabble. Blond. Eyes like a storm cloud. Won’t think I’m a freak. Has a nice laugh. Makes me think. Makes tea every morning, won’t drink skimmed milk, favourite biscuits are chocolate digestives, can run really fast and shoot really well and isn’t scared of _anything_.”

It was almost sad to witness; Sherlock, barely nine years old, throwing petals haphazardly everywhere as he cast a spell, his amas veritas. Sherlock, making sure he never, ever fell in love, creating the perfect woman. “Everybody’s scared of something,” Mycroft pointed out softly; Sherlock turned to him, childish features thrown into confusion. “If there’s no way it could _ever_ be possible, the spell won’t hold.”

“Okay,” Sherlock said seriously. “Isn’t scared of anything tangible,” he amended, raising a querying eyebrow at Mycroft; he smiled slightly, nodded. Whether it held or not, it was important to Sherlock that he _believed_ it did; he needed to know he could be safe from pain, forever.

The petals spiralled up into the sky, and Mycroft held his younger brother tight, watching them float away.

-

Sherlock hadn’t even begun to consider that John could be his missing other half. It was too bizarre a concept. He had left magic behind a long while ago, back with his brother, a world that wasn’t his own any more.

It was when John put his feet up with a cup of tea, dunking a chocolate digestive into it, laughing in a way that made Sherlock’s spine feel oddly watery, that he began to consider.

Sherlock knew magic was real, and existed, and that spells could do extraordinary things. He knew that if his perfect person _did_ exist, through some strange quirk, the spell would likely bring them together, through fate, through destiny, through simple magic. Their paths would cross. Gender didn’t matter much, although he’d cast with a girl in mind. Nothing mattered, other than him.

John Watson. Blond, and brave, and honest. Eyes that were blue, but not bright blue, but the dark ebony blue of a storm, catching occasional light, textured and varied and complex.

It was possible. It was definitely possible. Crack shot, could run exceptionally damn fast when required, refused to put up with anybody calling Sherlock a freak.

Sherlock was playing Scrabble with Mycroft over Christmas. They were obligated to spend some time with one another, after all, which apparently meant that the Holmes brothers were risking another board game.

John spent most of the game watching. It was near the end, before he started murmuring words under his breath, glancing at Sherlock’s tiles. “Quartan,” he said quietly, and Sherlock laid the tiles, smirking at Mycroft’s expression. _Excellent_.

It’s when they’re running through London streets, John laugh a cascade of sound, flattened against the wall of 221B having darted away from overzealous police, that Sherlock asks: “What are you scared of, John?”

John is so used to Sherlock’s perverse questions that he doesn’t so much as bat an eyelid. He replies after a heartbeat or so, with absolute gravity. “Loss,” he says, and Sherlock feels something in his stomach contract, relax, chest expanding.

A child had cast a spell, once.

It was impossibly _wonderful_ , knowing that magic could still exist, even with his childhood long since left behind.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a crazy dream last night, I was hoping you could make something out of it? Sherlock Holocaust AU? John’s mum was Jewish and he’s now in a camp. Dr. Holmes does experiments on the prisoners - not because he believes in the Reich, but out of curiosity and exploration. John’s relieved that he, at least, will be killed for ‘science’ rather than because he’s a ‘lesser/evil’ person. Sherlock grows to like John, and must decide whether this experiment is worth losing him. – anon

It was such a shame about his family, Sherlock mused, as he cast his eyes over the man in front of him.

John Watson could have passed for Aryan, with enough work; as it was, he had an unfortunate background of Judaism that had attracted attention from those in command.

Sherlock was not precisely a Reich supporter, but he was hardly going to condemn it. He was offered a place to experiment, to test theories for the greater good on a series of subjects who were in no place to object. Cranial capacity, neurological functions, the different areas of the mind and how they worked with other segments, memory.

John was surprisingly good at the initial memory tests Sherlock threw at him; he glanced over to the tall, thin man intermittently, visibly nervous, anxiety clouding his performance. It was a constant battle, trying to eliminate the peripheral factors of fear and anxiety, and one Sherlock was bored of trying to battle.

“Do make an effort,” he said in a bored tone; John glanced again, jaw tightening slightly, and promptly passed every possible test Sherlock could concoct. “Eidetic memory?”

“No,” John replied quietly. “Just a good one.”

Sherlock couldn’t resist a smile of satisfaction. This one was intelligent, spoke back with a little bit of bite. Far more interesting than most.

He would be dead within approximately two months. Possibly more, possibly less, but only by two weeks or so either side; it was an inevitability. Subjects were not intended for long-term study; the tests Sherlock was conducting was biology-based, needed to see the internal structure to compare to the outside embodiment.

It seemed something of a shame, to waste John Watson for something as simple as cranial exploration. “I’d like to conduct some further experiments,” Sherlock told him; as he did so, he noted that the slight tremor in his hand ceased. Not an anxious tic, then, but a way to deal with misplaced energy. How delightfully curious.

John nodded, a little stiffly, but didn’t speak.

“What occupation were you in, before your internment?” Sherlock asked; there were rarely records of past lives in prisoner files. They were reduced to a name, and a fault. Occasionally, the former was also missed, and human beings became reduced to a yellow star, a pink triangle, some other brand.

John looked at Sherlock curiously. “A doctor,” he replied, almost tentative.

“Any good?”

“Very,” he replied in a heartbeat, sensing a way out, sensing survival in some way or another.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, eyes cold, his thin smile unnerving. “Excellent,” he murmured, and began making arrangements for a new member of medical staff to join his team.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Loving your fills as always! Could you write some MorMor please? Where Sebastian has the task of following-through with Jim’s threats. Ones like: “I will turn you into shoes" and “I will burn the heart out of you". Thanks! Xx – shertealocked

The problem with Jim was how very easily he could get bored, while also being adamant that criminality required a basic level of consistency. Spewing threats was simple enough – Jim was rather adept at them – but the follow-through, well. If somebody had fizzled out of immediate interest, then it was left to Seb to handle it.

And oh, but it was fun. Jim would recall his wording – _make you into shoes_ – and set his Sebby off into the distance with a wickedly sharp knife and a smile that spoke of malice, intent, and simple fun. Jim disliked getting his hands dirty. He had Sebby for that.

The screaming turned to music, and Seb washed himself in blood while listening to Jim giggle delightedly, clapping his hands as skin pared off and crimson ran through gutters.

Afterwards, Jim would reward him, and that was always worthwhile.

Jim had the ideas. Seb followed orders. Entering the shady realms of Jim’s fevered imagination was always amusing. A heart, literally spit-roasted, placed on a doorstep in a box with a DVD, and Jim had not a spot on him, but the vengeance was all his, and that was known.

Seb didn’t _need_ to be mastermind. He was quite content to listen to the slow diminuendo of screams as a man ran out of air, present the products to his Jim with a leonine smile, all teeth.

They did not love each other. They needed each other. Seb needed permission. Jim needed a lieutenant. They trusted each other entirely, and told the other no secrets beyond what was required. Neither knew the first thing about the other, but they fucked in the dark and whispered stories of corpses, and that was quite enough to be getting along with.

“A little sniper mission for you, hmm?” Jim purred in Seb’s ear, nibbling at the earlobe, hard enough to inspire a hiss in anybody weaker.

Seb pushed Jim onto his back, form ranging over him, kissing him with the force Jim needed to survive. Seb’s power was borrowed, but at least there _was_ power. At least he was never boring. Jim wouldn’t _bear_ him if he was boring.

Jim found his guns, presenting them with a childish type of pride, a _look what I did_ attitude that fitted ill on a man of his age, yet perfectly captured his impossibilities.

Sharp clicks, shots. Mufflers. The sharp exhale of air leaving a body. The wet noise of a knife between ribs, the crack of bone, the rattle of liquid filling lungs. The gasping, livid shouts of orgasm, the rasp of bodies moving against each other.

They survive in counterpoint.

Until, of course. In a shot, splatter, fixed smile.

It stops.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since you’re into Holmescest, I’d like to see Q’s reaction to his brothers being more than just brotherly towards each other. I’d like it if they’d managed to hide their relationship from Q until after Sherlock fakes his suicide. – anon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Incest

Q gave a gentle sound, simply shocked, in a way that transcended every single other emotion in his body. The footage was undeniable, everything, _everything_ , leading to a single point, something he could not ever hope to deny.

It took less than twenty minutes, to reach the Diogenes club, to find Mycroft in his office with his umbrella, his expression terrifyingly closed, the expression Mycroft only had when emotion had become far too much to deal with.

“He is… he _was_ … our brother,” Q managed, disgusted and horrified and angry and almost _frightened_. “You’re… jesus, Mycroft, you were _seven years_ older than him, you’re his, our, brother, and you…”

“Ah,” Mycroft said simply, sighed.

Q was all but _trembling_. “Mycroft…”

“We waited until Sherlock was eighteen. Our relationship was entirely reciprocal, and consensual. I cared very deeply for him,” Mycroft told Q, expression and voice wholly level. “His loss has cut more deeply than you could know, or conceive of.”

Honestly, Q felt his entire world shaking, shifting on its axis. “You two… you… Sherlock _hated_ you,” Q said, feeling exceptionally _confused_ , beyond anything else.

To his enormous surprise, Mycroft managed something like a laugh. “Of that, I am certain,” he agreed. “And yet – we shared something unique. Certainly, we were unlike others. But that has always been true, has it not?”

Q was inches from hyperventilation, as another pertinent point made itself known. “Since Sherlock was _eighteen_?!” he repeated, breathless. “But… jesus, _fuck_ , Mycroft… I was thirteen. I was _thirteen_. I don’t understand. _Why_?!”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “Why is it that you care for Bond?” he asked softly. “These matters are not always explicable. Very simply: Sherlock and I understood one another, in a way no other could.”

Q took a breath, steadying himself, making his head stop spinning. “Understanding one another does not have to lead to… I found footage, Mycroft, and you…”

“I do not see that sharing physical intimacy is more alarming than sharing absolute emotional intimacy,” Mycroft pointed out, in a way that made unfortunate sense. “Sherlock and I were acquainted with all aspects of the other’s psyche, and yet you are quite so concerned about the carnal?”

There was no denying that Mycroft had been torn apart by Sherlock’s death. Q had seen it; Mycroft regressed, became more silent than Q had ever known him, tortured by what Q had assumed was guilt. The same guilt Q himself felt, for not managing to save his elder brother.

Mycroft did not merely believe he was responsible for the death of his brother. He believed he was responsible for the death of his lover.

“I don’t like it,” Q murmured.

“I do not require you to,” Mycroft parried, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Merely know that Sherlock was all, for the time we had. I do not regret it. I have no such interests in you, either – no need to be offended…”

“… I’m really not…”

“… but you emote to the extent of barely being Holmesian, hmm?” Mycroft said, an old tease, a jibe from their earliest childhood. Sherlock and Mycroft and Q, they were all different from everybody else. Sherlock and Mycroft, though. They shared something. Some intangible similarity.

Or perhaps, Q’s dominant memories were through teenagedom, long after his brothers had begun their illicit relationship.

Q sighed, feeling very, very tired. “Tea?” Mycroft offered quietly.

“Please,” Q murmured, and tried not to think.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Could you please write something about how John has a list of the weirdest places he’s been taken when kidnapped. ( Like a Barbie factory and a Wasabi food store - whatever) And Sherlock is quite surprised at how often he gets kidnapped. Nice and fluffy please :) Thank you - you are amazing! – shertealocked

The blog post was curious, one of the more bizarre things Sherlock had read in recent years. He had believed that there was a basic knowledge he had about John’s life, habits, routines, and to find himself disabused of those notions was curious, at best.

… _Today’s was a Barbie factory. I didn’t know they had those in the UK, anyway. Lot of decapitated, incorrectly proportioned female dolls in pink plastic, and being tied to a chair in the midst of that chaos had a certain sense of je ne sais quoi to it…_

“John!” Sherlock yelled; John glanced around, blinking slightly, exhausted. He had been curled up on the sofa dozing, after a rather trying day; the case had been more chaotic than normal, and John had gone off-radar for several hours. Sherlock had merely assumed he was busy somewhere, doing something relatively dull – and after the exertions of the case, divining John’s misdemeanours was simply too mundane.

A curious look. “Yes?”

“You were kidnapped,” Sherlock said simply, gesturing at the laptop.

John looked at it, confused, quite tired. “And?” he asked wearily. “Not really groundbreaking, I’m averaging once every ten days.”

Sherlock cocked his head to one side, in frank alarm. “Ten days?! I was only aware of once a month or so,” Sherlock said, sounding honestly shocked. “My observational faculties are clearly diminished, in your presence. This is problematic.”

John yawned. “S’not that weird. I don’t have much to hide. ‘Cept the kidnappings, but they’re fine, you’ll come running if it’s ever anything serious,” John said, curling up back on the sofa. “Christ, I shouldn’t be sleeping at this angle, murder on my back.”

“And being tied to chairs is perfectly fine?”

“I’m used to it,” John shrugged, standing, cricking out his back. “There we are. I’m off to bed, Sherlock.”

“A _noodle bar_?!” Sherlock repeated with hostile incredulity, scanning through more entries.

“Yeah. My favourite was the aeroplane hanger, really scenic. The Diogenes is very polite, but I don’t count that among my main kidnappings, that’s just Mycroft. The Chinese are horrible kidnappers, bloody rude… Brits tend to be polite. I was in a suburban house at one point, they were _lovely,_ gave me tea and biscuits… not even drugged ones… but yes. I’m something of an expert in this field, these days.”

John smiled, nodded at Sherlock, who was still gaping. “Goodnight,” he said brightly, and left.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for writing. Your prompt fills always make my days brighter. I have another prompt for you. Sherlock develops short term memory problems (I’ll leave the cause up to you). It sends him into a downward spiral at first, and John is afraid that he’ll start using drugs again or engage in other self-destructive behaviours (more so than usual). But Sherlock figures out how to cope with his condition by leaving himself clues to fill in the gaps in his memory. – seekingidlewild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jen's version!

Sherlock was terrifyingly, lethally depressed. He was collapsed on the sofa in a heap of limbs, draped, staring dully into distant space and breathed, the darkness absolute as it lingered heavily over his head.

It had to happen. Eventually, running around London, darting in and out of streets, had to end badly: Sherlock Holmes had been hit by a car.

Head injuries, culminating in Sherlock being unable to form or keep a number of short-term memories. His entire memory, in fact, had become variably unstable; intermittently, John would talk to him, and have to repeat the statements once, twice, three times to try and make it stick.

This was not Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock depended on his mind, on every facet of his mind, and his memory was an integral part; the mind palace was shattering, and he could do little to save it.

John fell out of bed at three in the morning, to find Sherlock at the kitchen table. Not unusual, but the lack of science equipment certainly was; instead, Sherlock was sat at the table, drawing.

“What?” John asked, almost wearily. “Sherlock,  _what_?”

Sherlock held up a long-fingered, pale hand without a word, and John fell silent. Rolling his eyes, he crossed to Sherlock, looking over his shoulder at a very detailed drawing of a ballroom, filled with carvings and chandeliers and patterned flooring.

He laid his paper flat, adding it to a pile, different perspectives, different views, different rooms. Pages and pages, constructing a building.

Constructing a  _palace_.

“Oh,” John murmured, reaching out to look; Sherlock batted his hand away sharply, and John obediently retracted it. “You’re drawing it?”

“I store every memory here,” Sherlock told him dispassionately, eyebrows contracted. “Everything I have. I can’t remember everything, but I can link it back, the associations still exist. The memories are present, I simply can’t access them.”

“So this… lets you access them?”

Sherlock didn’t look up. “Quite.”

John smiled, looking over the papers, the retractable pencils from a large packet that Sherlock had apparently worked through, and duly discarded. The perfection of it all, the meticulous detail of something that only existed in Sherlock’s head – and of course, Sherlock had something so intricate, so beautiful.

And it was. It really was beautiful.

John just sat at the kitchen table, and watched.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for writing. Your prompt fills always make my days brighter. I have another prompt for you. Sherlock develops short term memory problems (I’ll leave the cause up to you). It sends him into a downward spiral at first, and John is afraid that he’ll start using drugs again or engage in other self-destructive behaviours (more so than usual). But Sherlock figures out how to cope with his condition by leaving himself clues to fill in the gaps in his memory. – seekingidlewild

It had all started after a particularly nasty fall. Not that fall. But Sherlock had almost begun to make a habit of it. Leaping cat-like during chases, running across balconies, watching from rooftops - nearly always landing on his feet. When he did not, John would be there to patch him up; broken ribs, dislocated shoulders, general scraps and scratches.

Memory? That was another matter.

It was only short term. He could still remember his uni years, barring the years that had been drug addled or deleted. His childhood, meeting John, their cases. Not, however, the take away from the night before. Which experiments he was running (which naturally led to numerous explosions, and one infamous fumigation). His work was compromised.

“Which one?”

“The woman - the one in the blue. Pearls. It was impossible,” Sherlock ranted once again, delving through his case files.

“Her? Oh, you solved that three days ago,” John replied, watching as Sherlock curled up on the sofa with a muffled growl. “Look, don’t worry about it. Honestly, you’ve got nothing on at the moment…”

“Precisely!” Sherlock howled, pulling a pillow down onto his face dramatically. “Why isn’t this getting better? You said it would get better.”

“The human brain isn’t an exact science, you prat,” John sighed, rubbing his temple. “I said it  _might_  get better. If you are that worried then go to Mycroft’s…”

The glare he received was enough to let that idea die in the water. John silenced, returning attention to his blog with a harassed sigh.

Weeks passed. Nothing improved. John was forced to develop an interest in amateur photography and film, trying to record and document each new development in a case. This almost worked, but it was the thought process that still evaded the great detective.

“I knew this, I know I  _knew_ this!”

He was pushed further into a silent slump, moping around the flat, forgetting to eat. John was hauled into the Diogenes more than once to meet with a serious-looking Mycroft, who – for the first time in John’s memory – was visibly concerned.

_Danger night? JW_

_Quite possibly. MH_

_More like danger bloody month. JW_

_Quite. MH_

John returned from one of these enforced social meets to find the flat entirely silent. John inhaled sharply, senses honed in, war instincts twitching; something had changed. He entered slowly, looking for signs of his errant room mate.

“Sherlock?”

No answer.

John reached for the light switch, half dreading quite what he would be illuminating. “Sherlock, are you here?” he called again; before his hand reached the switch, it encountered something…papery.

“What the..?” he began, pulling off the sticky note. “Petals?”

“The petals! Thank you, John!” Sherlock called from within. Finally finding the light, John was greeted with Sherlock Holmes, surrounded by a chaos of post-it notes.

“What are you doing?” John asked, moving the paper from his chair and sitting down.

“I can’t keep it in my mind any more John, therefore I must keep it elsewhere!” Sherlock sighed, exasperated. “This way, when I complete a deduction, I can remember it. I just can’t find them.”

“A filing system? An external mind palace?” John asked, a little amused by his friend’s solution.

“Perfect! How?”

Thus, Sherlock Holmes acquired a laptop.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just remembered Jen said she was a Holmescest shipper. Feel free to ignore this, but if you happen to have a craving for it, I propose angsty Holmescest (because your angsty ones are always so good and they hit me right in the feels), preferably with Mycroft being torn because Mystrade issues. You both are amazing and I love your fills! – writingjetsam

Sherlock always managed to smell wonderful. It was an inescapable fact about the man; no matter how many crime scenes he visited, experiments he exploded or polluted gallivants through London he took, the man always ended up smelling delightful. It truly wasn’t fair.

Mycroft inhaled, drawing Sherlock’s body closer to his own as he slept.

The exhale brought with it thoughts of another man, a treacherous aspect of Mycroft’s mind playing tricks; he had been introduced to Greg Lestrade after yet another of Sherlock’s misadventures, and been rather surprised by the intense sensation of weightlessness that attacked his midriff.

The man was older, not to mention married, with moderate level intellect and nothing like his brother. And yet; there was something about him, something straightforward. It would be so simple. A divorce needed, admittedly, but most of the paperwork was already half-filled if the state of his ring finger was indicative of his marriage. No more secrets. He could even go out in public, to functions. He could meet mummy.

If Sherlock had been any other, Mycroft would be concerned about breaking his heart. Given Sherlock’s frequent, impassioned assertions that he  _had_  no heart, the point was moot.

Sentiment was, of course, a disadvantage. Mycroft knew that, had always known that; Sherlock had always assumed that meant avoiding sentiment at all costs. In all honesty, Mycroft had only ever meant that one needed to understand one’s own fallacies. Mycroft had fallen utterly, terribly in love throughout his life – but, at least, he never attempted to deny it.

Sherlock shifted in his arms, existing in the beatific moment between sleeping and waking, and flashing Mycroft an incredibly rare smile. It was lazy and sloppy and held none of Sherlock’s normal malice. Mycroft felt himself deflate as he looked at that smile. It was one of the few things that Sherlock had kept from his childhood; the sharpness of his extraordinary intelligence, against something that naive emotion, simple and untarnished.

“You are concerned about something,” Sherlock commented, smile vanishing to be replaced with his normal, stoic expression.

Mycroft looked over him, pulling him close and kissing him deeply, hands twisting in Sherlock’s hair.

He pulled away, looping arms around his lover, burying his head in Sherlock’s curls to conceal his expression. “Nothing of any importance,” he murmured, and knew that Sherlock didn’t believe it.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeebus. You are brilliant. Seariously. all your fills are phenomenal. I’d like to ask a Mystrade , where Mycroft is feeling less then confident after he sees how women flirt with Gerg, ven though he knows he shouldn’t be. AnD Greg notices and just gushes about how uttrely adorable he is? (Because even though Myc is more close to a boogymen then to a poney I just love the idea of Greg gushing about him ). Thank you so muuuuch! – anon

Women liked men in uniform, or so Mycroft Holmes was reliably informed. Half of them wanted Greg because of the job, the rest were flirting to get off charges. Somehow it didn’t make it any better.

“None of them are even close to your intelligence,” Greg tried as yet  _another_  attractive female winked at him. “She’s only trying to get her husband off the assault charges.”

“Be that as it may, the temptation to rip off her false nails, individually, is impressively strong,” Mycroft informed him, looking at the woman. His face betrayed nothing, but his knuckles had grown rather white on the handle of his favourite umbrella.

Greg followed his eyeline curiously. “Those aren’t false,” he commented, looking the woman up and down.

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “Makes the idea even more appealing,” he parried drily, jaw tight. “I have never understood the odd  _necessity_  of flirting, for males and females alike. I do appreciate that not everybody can deduce sexuality or interest with ease, but that woman is in a relationship, and quite frankly, flirting is superfluous when she has no interest in leaving her partner.”

“It’s… never mind,” Greg sighed; it was pointless trying to explain to either Holmes brother quite  _why_  people did anything. Flirting, to Greg, was simply a way of communicating – how people spoke and often got what they wanted. “There is no need to get so bloody jealous.”

Mycroft sneered, a highly repellent expression. “Hardly,” he scoffed.

“Good, because not a single one of them has ever been my type,” Greg informed him, grin spreading across his face. “None are as attractive…”

Mycroft laughed, truly laughed at this.

“To  _me,_  you prick,” Greg told him as the pair of them walked away. “They aren’t as ambitious, as interesting.”

“You forgot omniscient, overbearing and pretentious,” Mycroft corrected him as they headed for a cafe. Greg continued to smile as Mycroft looked at the place in marginal disgust.

“They do nice wraps,” Greg informed him as Mycroft raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. “Look, I don’t desire any of them. Just you. You impossible, slightly obsessive man.”

“Thank you; as ever, Gregory, your attempts at encouragement have an excellent effect on my self esteem,” Mycroft told him elaborately, looking over the lines of sandwich fillings and trying to determine the fat content of each.

Greg shook his head, the battle lost. He placed a hand at the base of Mycroft’s spine, stroking softly.

Mycroft continued to stare at the food with the warmth of Greg’s hand over his lower back, the corner of his mouth twitching almost indiscernibly upwards.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My friend directed me to your blog and I instantly followed. I have a fill if it isn’t too much trouble? BBC Sherlock(Johnlock) Bisexual fem!John. “Scandal in Belgravia.” In which Irene had previously known Joan.She and Irene had a thing in the past and best knew her as Three Continents Watson. Irene flirts with Joan in front of Sherlock, he becomes jealous the oblivious prat doesn’t see that Joan is not interested in Irene any more. I’ll leave the ending up to you. - belislythindor

Joan followed him up the stairs, Sherlock’s steely silence hardly uncommon. It was normally, however directed at the world in general - for some reason Joan found herself in a specific type of hell. One that involved Sherlock Holmes and a death glare that rivalled Medusa. Thankfully, Afganistan had toughened her more than enough to withstand the turmult that was her flatmate.

"Ok. What did I do?" she asked wearily, sitting down opposite Sherlock and raising an eyebrow.

-

The day had started relatively well, until the point of Irene Adler becoming involved. Sherlock was completely stunned and had no idea what to do with himself, and Joan was relatively certain she had blushed all the way to her toes.

"Mmm, you haven’t changed a bit," Irene cooed, stroking a finger down Joan’s face. Joan swallowed the discomfort and rolled her eyes, ignoring Irene’s nudity; it was hardly something she hadn’t seen before.

“Would you like to put something on?” she asked drily. “Napkin, maybe?”

Irene took the napkin and, of course, dropped it in Sherlock’s lap with a lascivious wink. The man sat mutely, watching the two women. If he were anyone else, he might be celebrating his sheer luck as Irene mentally undressed  _his_  doctor; as it stood, he felt a surge of incomprehensible jealousy.

Irene smiled, eyes bright. “I’ve missed you.”

"Really?" Joan asked, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. "I see you have found a more than adequate replacement."

The smile mutated into a grin, all teeth. “Always room for one more…”

-

"You two had previous sexual relations," Sherlock accused. Joan nodded slowly, almost amused.

"Brilliant,” she said sarcastically. “Was it the way I tied my shoe, or simply that she invited me to sleep with her?"

Sherlock blinked, mouth in a thin line. “You…”

"Please, tell me you saw the  _other_  obvious factor of that conversation?” Joan asked wearily. Sherlock stared back, blank and imperious, and Joan rolled her eyes. “Past tense. I have no interest. It was  _years_  ago, when we were both quite a lot younger. Sherlock…”

"She is female. You are therefore…?"

Joan rolled her eyes. “Bisexual. As we’ve stated before, it’s  _all fine_ , and so… well. Stop looking at me like that.”

"Like what?" Sherlock snapped, looking away from Joan suddenly.

"Like I’ve done something terrible," Joan snapped right back, hands on her hips.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, not deigning the statement worthy of reply. Joan gritted her teeth, looked briefly to the sky as if for divine guidance. Eventually: “So, you have no further interest in Irene Adler?” Sherlock confirmed.

"No," Joan confirmed. "Why, jealous? She’s not exactly a hard pull,"

Sherlock looked almost  _offended_  by the insinuation. “And anyway,” Joan continued, half-preparing for an all-out rant. “Why does it matter? You don’t care about anybody else I try to date, so why Irene? You don’t care, so leave it alone.”

"Fine," Sherlock replied, face contorting. He stood suddenly, "I’ll be in my room."

Joan rolled her eyes, standing as well.

"And I’m going to make tea," she said lividly. There was an awkward, pregnant pause. "Would you like any?" she demanded in the same, angered tone.

Sherlock looked at her, face almost imploding with rage. “No, I do  _not_  want any tea!”

He stormed off, leaving Joan alone in the living room. She fumed for a moment, sorely tempted to follow him, just to punch some sense into the arrogant git. Taking a breath, remembering yoga, she moved away to the kettle.

It was only while pouring herself a cup did it dawn on her that perhaps she wasn’t the one Sherlock was jealous of.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You also write Johnlock!!!! OMG you have the full package. You incredible human being and writer you are awesome. I believe you must know who Hamish is, so I really want to know YOUR VERSION from where does he comes from. – anon

“You wish to have a child,” Sherlock stated flatly, not bothering to look up from the unidentifiable portion of human flesh he had in a petri dish, and the syringe in his hand.

John just glanced away from his computer, at his long-time partner, and sighed. “Was it my shoelaces?” he asked with light sarcasm; Sherlock rolled his eyes, managing to be disparaging with irritating ease. “Go on.”

Sherlock ignored him for a handful of seconds, dripping something on the flesh and making the blood coagulate with a smell like burnt bacon. John sighed, glanced over his blog – another four followers overnight, since the Case of the Dancing Men write up – and waited.

Eventually, Sherlock twisted to him. He had a truly electric intensity that John was accustomed to ignoring; while many could be thrown by Sherlock’s adamant attempts to be intimidating, John knew him just a little too well. “Cases. Your eye line. Your comments about your sister, and her childlessness. Interest in fertility treatments, mentioned on three separate occasions within the last month. General  _broodiness_ , as the colloquial phrase goes; you could barely contain yourself when Mrs Hudson brought next door’s infant over here.”

John breathed in. Breathed out.

“Yes,” he said carefully, wondering just how many Big Red Buttons of Commitment and Stability he would press by broaching this particular issue. “I have always imagined I would one day be a parent. I knew when I met you that it would be harder… biology notwithstanding, I assumed…”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “You’re idiotic for not mentioning your desire sooner,” he said dispassionately. “I actually have a great interest in fatherhood. I believe my inadequacies concerning children would be more than amply addressed by your fine self and Mrs Hudson’s inevitable interference, and we would have a good chance of raising a well-balanced child.”

“Your work…”

“The two factors are not mutually exclusive,” Sherlock commented, eyes surprisingly light. “The work would continue, certainly. We would need to be wary of how we manage our time. These are not unusual considerations for prospective parents, correct?”

John took another handful of breaths, dimly aware that he had never expected the conversation to unravel quite like this. Usually, anything that involved time, effort and was not directly related to sex – which, for them at least, children was not – was a long way away from Sherlock’s interests.

“You would like… a child,” John said slowly, already aware that Sherlock would mock him for being so slow. “With me. You would like to raise a child with me.”

Sherlock graced him with a smile. A true smile, one of the rare things that Sherlock seemed to save for his viewing alone. “As would you,” he pointed out, without unkindness. “We will need to discuss methods…”

“I’d like your genes involved,” John said, a little too quickly; Sherlock’s smile quirked a little further towards a laugh, and John kept his gaze very steady to avoid otherwise blushing. He had some pride, for god’s sake.

Sherlock inclined his head gracefully. “We will discuss further imminently,” he promised, a quiet but firm assurance. “For now, I need to ensure that I will not spill blood across Mrs Hudson’s table. I believe it could cause distress.”

With that, he returned attention to the syringe.

John just smiled slightly, and glanced over his blog with his mind entirely elsewhere.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey yo! I’m still there reading your fills!! (As if I can quit reading those amazing). So may be “John and Greg and technically everybody have enough of Sherlock fat-shaming Mycroft”? I’m not slim myself, so you can say I cannot really like Sherlock attitude towards his brother, feud or not… – meggimed

Sherlock smirked, hidden behind the comfortable safety of his violin, string-thin limbs folded into his chair. “Diet going poorly?” he said, a bouncing taunt running through his voice, Mycroft standing in the doorway with his usual fixed expression, Lestrade by his side.

He looked briefly skyward, back down to his brother. “It is progressing well,” he said carefully; Sherlock continued to look over him, expression vaguely disparaging.

“You’ve gained,” he said, with grim satisfaction. “Indisputably.”

John, at his laptop, rolled his eyes. “For god’s sake Sherlock, lay off,” he snapped; Sherlock looked to him with faint confusion. John didn’t usually snap at him like that.

Mycroft was quiet, looking to John with something remarkably similar to gratitude; Lestrade, meanwhile, had slid his hand into Mycroft’s as a form of nonverbal support. “You’re a real bastard sometimes, Sherlock,” he said simply. “You may like to insult everybody, but there comes a bloody point…”

Sherlock looked completely and utterly confused. “Mycroft?” he asked, eyebrows contracting, a note of scepticism in his tone.

Lestrade’s jaw was set into the line of somebody who had reached the end of his temper; John was less vehement, but watched nonetheless as Mycroft let out a low breath. “I would appreciate less unpleasantness on a subject you know rankles,” he said, with customary diplomacy.

For a suspended moment, all was silent. Sherlock stared at his brother, in the way only Sherlock could; scanning over him, assessing everything of him for truth and perspective. Whatever he found, it caused a strange flitting expression, something altering; John and Lestrade watched, with true interest, as Sherlock’s expression moved into contemplative, into understanding.

“I apologise,” he said simply, flatly.

John raised an eyebrow, and Greg just nodded as though it was the only expected thing to do.

Mycroft simply inclined his head in acceptance. “Now, as to your recent ventures in Covent Garden…”


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Finally worked up the nerve to ask for a prompt, here goes: a really hot and NSFW johnlock smutty goodness? I was hoping for maybe their first year anniversary celebration that leads to just a delicious amount of super hot sex! Thanks a bunch!! – deriver-tranquillement

Takeaway. Judging by the smell and greasiness of the bags, it was his favourite Indian; starters and mains, relatively spicy, but nothing that would be too painful. A pleasant meal, not overwhelmingly expensive, but certainly not cheap. Candles, lit, and the rest of the table neatly set.

John.

"Anniversary?" Sherlock surmised, looking from John to the dinner with mild interest.

"Correct," John nodded, with a slight smirk. "You got me a watch; it’s just what I wanted, thank you. I’ll send you the receipt."

Sherlock looked down to the new timepiece, gleaming on John’s wrist; it suited him, actually, and was rather close to anything Sherlock would have selected. “Good,” he managed, as he too was proffered a small box.

Sherlock reached out, only to have it snatched back. “No guessing,” John instructed firmly, handing it back once Sherlock had agreed. Sherlock opened it slowly, finding… a new webcam. “HD and built in mic. It will be like you’re there in person.”

John was delighted by Sherlock’s smile, an almost-hidden little thing. “I…thank you,” Sherlock murmured, as the webcam was removed from his fingers and he was manoeuvred to the table.

"We are going to eat, no one will interrupt - I’ve had a word with Lestrade. Alright?"

Sherlock considered speaking, but was immediately stalled by his partner’s expression. “That will be fine,” he said instead.

John placed the various containers around the table, glancing up at Sherlock intermittently. “Do you… I mean, the way this has all happened… do you… like it?”

"Taking control? Organising the entire evening, even getting yourself a present?" Sherlock said slowly, eyes focusing on his wine for a moment.

John hesitated, sensing dissatisfaction. “Look I shouldn’t have…”

He was cut off by Sherlock’s lips pressing against his own, practically diving over the table to reach him; the passion was truly impressive, John’s shock immobilising him momentarily before he managed a response.

"What was that?" he gasped, when Sherlock pulled away for a heartbeat or so. "Thank you would have done."

"I like it." Sherlock told him, pupils blown wide.

John’s brows contraction with confusion. “Like what? The evening?”

"When you… take charge." Sherlock managed.

John’s mouth opened in a small _oh_  of understanding as his gaze flicked to Sherlock’s trousers.

Ah.

And thus, the pair ended up in the bedroom, dinner all but forgotten. John had found his dog tags and a tie; one hung about his neck, the other tightly around Sherlock’s, the end of which was grasped in John’s hand as he thrust into his partner’s body.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you to a Mystrad where Mycroft is a regular clinet in a Pâtisserie , and Lestrade is the baker? Bonus points if he gets turned on by the way Myc savours his cakes. – anon

He threw the door open overenthusiastically, scanning the space, face falling almost comically.

Empty shop.

"Waiting for me?"

Greg jumped, almost knocking over the cupcake stand in sheer shock.

Mycroft Holmes stood from where he had been leaning, observing the pastries with a casually interested expression, and glanced over Lestrade appraisingly. He was always the first person there in the mornings, when he appeared, and Lestrade would always open the shop to let him in while he finished the early-morning prep.

"No. I mean… yes," Greg admitted, shrugging and brushing a hand through his hair, smiling awkwardly at his favourite client. A second later he reached for his hand sanitizer, rubbing it over his hands, swallowing slightly. "What will it be today, sir?"

"You know,” Mycroft commented nonchalantly. “I would ask you to call me Mycroft, as we have known each other for a while… but I do like the way you say ‘sir’.”

Greg swallowed.

"Eclair," Mycroft answered, after an excruciating moment.

Greg was relatively certain he’d gone  _purple_. “Certainly, sir,” he managed, ringing it up on the till and placing it on a plate. “Eating in?”

"I should think so," Mycroft conceded, taking the plate, and handing over exact change.

He half-sauntered to a table, plate in one hand, umbrella in the other, and settled lightly at his usual table.

Greg sighed, making a small noise under his breath; it was watching thin lips engulfing the long pastry that did it. Greg’s mouth went dry, watching Mycroft wipe cream delicately from the edge of his mouth.

"I’ll pick you up at seven," Mycroft told him, a few moments later, without looking up.

Greg blinked out of his daze, confused. “What?”

Mycroft smirked. “Since you have just watched me eat a pastry for over fifteen seconds and have already got yourself more than a little excited, coupled with the way you always make sure to serve me, and the fact that calling me ‘sir’ clearly arouses you, I think it is fair to assume that you are interested,” Mycroft surmised easily. Greg thought about objecting, and decided it was probably pointless. “And given that I make a point to come in every morning and ruin my otherwise perfect diet, just to see your face, I think it is fair to assume that we are  _both_  interested. Ergo: I will pick you up at seven, wear something semi-formal and kindly do not insist on paying the bill.”

With that, Mycroft picked up his umbrella, dipped his head in a polite bow, and left.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey Jen! I was wondering, O queen of angst if I could ask for a big ol’helping of it =) Johnlock, where Sherlock goes through a mood (caught up in something, or maybe he is in a mood) and ignores two phone calls on his mobile. When he finally checks them they are both from John and oh god does he wish he could go back in time and answer the blasted phone. Angst away my dear. This came from a dream of sherloch listening to John die on the phone. felt masochistic, and needed MORE angst!! Xx – placeofold

The phone continued to ring in its insistent, obnoxious manner; Sherlock raised an eyebrow, not affording the metal and plastic contraption as much as a glance. It was probably John, grovelling in some manner after their rather impressive row.

John, as was his wont, had vanished into the night with his jacket and an angry expression that Sherlock had sheer contempt for and yet made something contract in his stomach for reasons known only to biological attraction and connection with another human being.

It was another half hour before he deigned to look at the mobile, ringing for the third time. If it were Lestrade, it was probably for the best that he actually conceded to answering the thing; a case would be the perfect remedy for the angry and petulant quiet that followed one of their rows.

As predicted, two missed calls from John. And, ideally, the final phone call from Lestrade with, presumably, a case. “Sherlock Holmes.”  
“Have you seen John?”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, in the emptiness of his flat. “He left, approximately one hour previously. Why?”

Lestrade’s voice was troubled, enough to be analysed, enough to establish that something had happened that was outside the parameters of his usual self-control and experience. “We’ve had contact from Moriarty, directly to the station – John…”

“I’ll be there imminently,” Sherlock interrupted, mind already clicking too quickly.

Lestrade cut in, moments before Sherlock cut off the call. “Sherlock, he’s dead. We have a team on the way, but there was footage… fuck, Sherlock, I’m sorry.”

Sherlock’s jaw set in a dangerous, lethal line. “Text me the address,” he said quietly, too quietly, attempting to establish some sense of anything in the context, and the memory of the missed calls lingering heavily on the edge of cognisance.

A single voicemail.

_Pick up the phone, you stupid bastard. Fuck, Sherlock. It’s Moriarty, again, of course it is, but… Sherlock, goodbye. It’s been brilliant. Thanks for everything. Absolutely everything. Look after yourself._

Eloquent, vacant silence.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello :) Johnlock and mystrade double date fic? Humour and or fluff - anon

It was hard to work out which was more terrifying: the Holmes boys sitting opposite each other, or the fact that both were possessively clutching at their respective partners.

"Lestrade," Sherlock nodded, while John winced slightly at the fingers in his forearm.

Greg sent him a tight, faintly pained grin and a brief nod back. “Sherlock.”

"John," Mycroft greeted with surprising warmth, given the overall discomfort of the situation. John was the only person even vaguely in control, although trying desperately not to laugh at the situation; it was absurd, it had  _always_  been absurd, to think this was in any sense a Good Idea. “Look gentlemen, can we please just accept the fact that we are all here and get over ourselves?” he asked mildly.

"No," Sherlock and Mycroft managed in utterly perfect unison, before glaring daggers at each other; Sherlock looked absurdly petulant, while Mycroft captured his usual disdain to remarkable effect.

"I can’t believe I agreed to this," Sherlock muttered.

Mycroft nodded, expression neutral, but with a mutinous edge in his eyes. “For once, brother dear, I concur.”

"It’s my birthday, and I want you all here," John told them both flatly. "Well,” he amended. “I wanted Greg, and it seemed polite, considering he is going to be my brother in law…"

Sherlock’s mouth fell open. “This is how you tell them?!” he remarked indignantly.

"Please, Mycroft knows, and…"

"And I had no idea," Greg completed, with a slight smile as he glanced between them. "Congratulations gents."

"I didn’t know officially," Mycroft pointed out calmly, looking irritatingly smug about that fact. "Although indeed, congratulations to the pair of you."

Greg shook his head with mild disbelief at the whole situation, and stood. “Drinks?”

"I’ll help you," John said, standing before his fiancée could object, and all but running from the table to Greg.

They could be heard laughing, while Mycroft and Sherlock sat in uncomfortable silence.

"Well, brother, have you set a date for the ceremony?" Mycroft asked, breaking through Sherlock’s studious silence.

Sherlock shrugged with visible boredom, watching as John ordered. “I didn’t see much point - John is insisting.”

Mycroft rolled his eyes. “It’s important to him,” he reprimanded. “Please at least _attempt_  to seem interested.”

"Why?" Sherlock asked obstreperously, tilting his head to watch John more carefully.

"Because you want to make him happy yes?" Mycroft pointed out.

Sherlock glanced away, meeting Mycroft’s eyes properly for perhaps the first time all evening. “Yes.”

Mycroft held him steadily, carefully. “Then please, for all involved, make it  _matter_ ,” he stated quietly, and broke off to smile genially at John and Greg as they returned with the drinks.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ooh. Can I ask for were!John shifting as a final resort to protect Sherlock, and Sherlock having no clue that there are shifters? And freaking out in a not so good way. – placeofold

“Sherlock!” John called, watching as the three men approached Sherlock’s battered form.

He was too late; blood was running from Sherlock’s arm as he curled in to protect his face. John’s eyes latched onto the glinting blade in the attackers’ hands, intention very clear. The men turned to his voice, even Sherlock snatching a look from behind his hands, and knew in an instant what was about to happen.

Blood laced through the air, time slowing down. Vision pinpointed as pupils expanded into darkness. Bones cracked, sliding into position as his skin tore, fur curling out beneath it. Nails extended, sharpening and shredding his clothing. Within moments the men were nothing; one running terrified, one in his jaws and the other knocked to the side.

After less than two minutes they were gone.

John turned, eyes on the last man, already beaten and bloody and  _weak_.

No.

It had been too long since he last shifted, , the adrenaline was affecting him. Shifters needed to maintain time in both forms and since the war John hadn’t allowed himself to; his werewolf form needed to be fed, to be given time to  _run_  and howl at the stars.

No.  _No_. He healed people, not ripped them to pieces.

John paused, mid-motion, falling to the floor.

His body began to reform, bones clicking back into position unpleasantly. His clothes were utterly destroyed, a few fragments clinging to his form. Mostly nude, and panting, he collapsed to the floor by his friend.

“You alright?” he breathed, trying to look up at Sherlock. The detective did not reply. “Sherlock?”

“What was that?” A cold question, as John tried to pull himself upright against the wall.

“Shifting. I’mma shifter,” John grunted, holding his head with a low moan; sudden, unplanned shifts were relatively unpleasant. “Sorry I didn’t tell you, I couldn’t I mean, I don’t want…”

Sherlock was breathing sporadically, moving his wrecked form warily backwards. “Shifter? Mythical animal, able to change between biological forms,” Sherlock confirmed to himself. “How long?”

“Since birth,” John shrugged. “Look, I know it’s different, but I don’t normally…”

Sherlock hissed out breath through his teeth. “Shifters. Shifters truly exist. Intriguing. Mythology based in a rare fact, a biological quirk presumably, genetic? Requires further exploration, testing. Potentially uncontrollable.”

“It  _is_  controlled,” John amended, as Sherlock grew ever paler, trying to rearrange his established beliefs about the world he inhabited. “I didn’t have an option, my… well, my human form, shall we say, would never have been fast enough. I haven’t shifted since the war, you know.”

Sherlock looked at him, blinking too-quickly. “We need to discuss this further,” he said sharply. “For now, however, I require medical treatment and a moment to assimilate the new information. I hope that is acceptable?”

“I hate it when you get formal,” John noted quietly, and helped Sherlock to his feet.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnlock songfic? to We Can Work It Out by the Beatles? – isthisrubble

“It may work,” John smiled, sadly, almost pained – but then, John Watson was never the type to concede pain, to concede defeat. “It might.”

Sherlock simply raised an eyebrow, face inches from John’s own, every indent of his skin visible and in stark relief, a map that John could draw from memory at any given heartbeat of the day or night. “It might not,” he pointed out, voice colder than John’s. It was  _always_  colder, somehow; he seemed impervious of the necessity to show a kindness, just because. Just for the sake of somebody else.

“Sherlock, you’re falling apart.”

It was a lie, because it had to be. It  _had to be_. Sherlock could not be anything but whole; he didn’t have anything else, he couldn’t  _be_  without his unflinching ability to be intact where no soul other was.

He therefore swallowed pride and sense and perspective, refused to concede so much as a shadow of defeat, because god  _damn it_ , he was better. He was always better, and _would always be_  better that the childish foibles of emotions that would play under his skin, eat him from the inside out.

A moment of quiet. “I am perfectly fine,” he said simply, in a tone that brooked no refusal.

John knew he was lying. “It’s okay,” he told Sherlock. “To be wrong, I mean. You’re allowed to be human, for once in your life.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow; John was usually immensely careful to avoid such insults, to throw aspersions on his humanity. He was upset, then. More so than usual. Curious.

“I do not see that a relationship would be conducive to any form of healing process,” he commented, a little drily. “Why…”

“ _Support_ ,” John returned, with tangible frustration. “Somebody who can actually  _care_ for you.”

“You do not at present?”

John breathed out, a steady hiss, grappling for control. “Of course I do,” he managed to force out. “But Sherlock, there is a difference. It’s not just… sex, it’s emotional intimacy, it’s… somebody you can trust with anything. It’s more than friends.”

“I don’t  _need_  emotional intimacy,” Sherlock returned, with the quiet petulance of a child. “I’m  _fine_  on my own.”

John shook his head slightly. “No,” he said softly. “You’re not.”

With that, he left, leaving Sherlock with a sense that something had changed, and he had yet to fully grasp what.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi darlings! How are you doing? I think on a promp…if is not to much to ask, i know you probably have tons of work out there; i’ll wait, i promise; so, ok, Sherlock try to kiss some girl (Irene or Molly or someone), but thats not really him area, and end up been more like pressed lips with each others, John saw him and when they’re in home he try to teach Sherlock how to do it properly…thanks guys, lots of love. – queenofpudding

It had been vaguely embarrassing; Sherlock had needed to kiss a young lady, a really pretty one at that, for a case. Just to establish a connection and generally extort information in Sherlock’s inimitable and socially unacceptable style.

The thing was, Sherlock was truly atrocious. He was visibly, breathtakingly atrocious. He just about managed to press lips to the poor girl before he backed off at high speed, smiling in a way that just seemed a little manic, and tried to continue as though very little had happened.

John sat opposite him.

Sherlock knew, because Sherlock knew everything, and neither of them had said anything about it and John had rather assumed neither of them ever  _would_.

Until, of course, Sherlock mentioned it.

“You wish to be in a relationship. With me.”

John felt the ground open, and tried to sink into it, succeeding in moulding himself to the sofa cushions instead. “Yes,” he said instead, with as much decorum as he could muster. “That’s been obvious for a while. Why’d you mention it?”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Your expression indicated that my skills at physical affection were somewhat lacking,” he stated drily. “I was rather hoping you may be more adept, and thus could manage tutelage.”

John blinked.

Ah well. Gift horses and all that.

Sherlock moved to him, resting in front of his armchair with eyes bright and sharp and kaleidoscopic, and John had no idea what to do given that his mouth was very dry and Sherlock was watching him with something like expectation.

He moved his hand to Sherlock’s hand, lacing fingers into the curls, careful. “It’s nothing to be frightened of,” he explained. “It’s just… enjoy it. The point is to enjoy it.”

Sherlock, mercifully, didn’t deign to reply.

John kissed him.

Against his mouth, Sherlock let out a soft  _oh_.


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello! You’re so brilliant i cant even!! I was wondering if you could write a fic where John is going about his life Post-Reichenbach and he sees Sherlock everywhere he goes, but it’s mostly just like Sherlock’s tagging along and following his day-to-day life and so John doesn’t really mind it, and this carries on until John meets Mary (or anyone else really) and when Sherlock disappears John realized that Sherlock was only there because he hadn’t fully ‘let go’ yet?? – anon

Sherlock was a constant, and John liked it. He was just  _there_. One of those undeniable facts that just persistently lingered, like the limp did these days; it was annoying, but perfectly manageable.

John didn’t talk to him, because he did rather fear he’d look insane, but it was nice to have him around. Just as a presence and just as company, when there would be otherwise quiet, otherwise loneliness; Sherlock stayed and he watched and he just seemed to observe, as he always had, as he always would.

He nearly knocked her over.

As it was, he walked into her, and ended up trying to catch her while she apologised profusely and John shook his head and smiled and they started talking, and it turned out her name was Mary, and she was completely and entirely beautiful.

It took over an hour to notice the absence.

John just assumed he would be back; Sherlock was always back, he always reappeared eventually. It was  _Sherlock_ , for god’s sake, he wouldn’t disappear just petulantly because he was chatting to a nice woman.

Lo and behold, he came back.

Then, John made the idiotic mistake of asking her out on a date.

John actually saw the moment Sherlock left. He looked, he raised an eyebrow – not unkind, just aware – and vanished.

It was somehow obvious that he was never coming back.

The absence was horrendous, at first, like losing a limb. A part of him just gone in an instant.

Except, gradually, Mary started to fill the emptiness. Gradually, the hollow feeling that John realised had  _always_  been there became less painful.

Gradually, John understood: Sherlock had been there because John had  _needed_  him there.

A low, soft sigh.

“Goodbye,” John murmured to his empty flat.

John grabbed his jacket, and walked away.


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love your prompts <3 Here’s one I thought of hope it’s not too weird >.

“The name’s Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B, Baker Street.”

John was near enough silent, composed enough to asked the pertinent questions, but still inwardly reeling in a way he simply didn’t have words enough to cover.

It was his Sherlock.

Of course, he could never hope to explain that concept to anybody else.  _His_  Sherlock had technically never  _been_ , so quite how he was supposed to cover the fact that he had always harboured an invisible friend in the furthest recesses of his psyche who  _was_ Sherlock Holmes, was beyond him.

The next morning, he arrived at 221 Baker Street, and still couldn’t believe what in the hell he was seeing when he encountered the figure in the long coat, imperious expression, voice a low caramel purr and eyes a startling sharp texture. “You seem to still be harbouring some sort of shock at my being,” Sherlock noted, tone brutally factual. “Any particular reason?”

John chose words carefully, expression carefully neutral. “I feel I’ve met you before,” he said calmly, simply. “Known you my entire life, in fact.”

Bow lips crooked in the vaguest of smiles. “Yes,” Sherlock agreed, quite flippantly. “I empathise quite entirely. I harboured a projection that was uncannily like you throughout my childhood. I cannot quite understand how it is possible that you stand before me now, but then, heaven and earth, as it is widely understood.”

John raised an eyebrow, mildly alarmed. “You… sorry, what?”

“Colloquially known as an invisible friend, I believe,” Sherlock told him, still in a bizarrely calm tone. “You are him. And it would seem, I am yours.”

It was  _beyond_  bizarre. “How…?”

“As I mentioned: I have no idea,” Sherlock conceded. “It is something I intend to explore in full, I assure you. However for now, I feel it is of no benefit to really look too closely. I hope you can understand that?”

John nodded slowly, wondering if this was a very extended form of hallucination.

He took a breath, and decided that pragmatism was probably the best – and only – real course of action. “So,” he said simply. “Shall we have a look?”

Sherlock grinned, and knocked on the door.


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The song “Feel Again” by One Republic just really strikes me as a Johnlock-ish song? Could I maybe request a songfic please? – anon

Sherlock let out a low sigh, and closed his eyes; thoughts spiralled out and upwards, and John watched with a vague smile crooking the corners of his mouth.

Since they had met, Sherlock had been an odd being, a shady creature that he could barely touch, barely reach. In some respects, that was still true; Sherlock moved in a different sphere to anything John could begin to understand.

And yet.

And  _yet_.

Sherlock was present. He was simply there, a creature that John could learn from and – more excitingly – teach. John never quite felt inferior. Different, certainly, and Sherlock was extraordinary in ways he could only vaguely begin to understand.

Then again, John was extraordinary too.

“Ready?” Sherlock asked, shrugging on his coat and glancing over his army doctor. “Double homicide, Holburn. Nasty deaths, brother and sister – I will need your help examining time of death, means of…”

“I know,” John interjected, already with his jacket on. “You have the kits with you?”

Sherlock smiled sideways, and nodded; John always needed certain supplies, assistance in ascertaining means of death, measuring devices Sherlock himself forewent due to simply not needing them.

If nothing else – and sometimes it genuinely felt like nothing else, it had to be said – Sherlock was incredible company. Despite the homicidal tendencies the man frequently inspired, he was enough to make John’s mind really work, to  _think_ , in a way nothing else quite could.

His skills were utilised, his mind could really  _work_  for once.

Sherlock would never admit it, but he liked company too.

John had never expected him to admit it. It was quite alright. Sherlock was useless, really, when it came to other people. It was how he could help, a good amount of the time; John understood people in a way Sherlock could never hope to.

They stood by two bodies, and John explained all he could, and Sherlock didn’t say a word but his eyes spoke amply, and he was thanked – he was thanked, and he was cared about.

Most importantly: he was no longer lonely. 


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earlier today I was hit by a car - that COMPLETELY ignored the Red Lights and Green Man - and it shattered my right knee cap so badly that I’m going to need surgery in order to fix it. I was wondering if I could request a fic in which Sherlock is hit by a car? His injuries can be completely up to you (be it worse than mine, or he’s just left with a few nasty bruises), I just want someone else to suffer like I am right now. Thank you! <3 – anon

Sherlock was beyond irritated. A long, long way beyond irritated, actually.

“This is precisely way I dislike working with the esteemed British public,” he ranted, arms thrown up in wild gesticulations, nearly knocking over John’s well-intentioned tea in the process. “Idiots, with no concept of observation or perspective or…”

“I know,” John interposed irritably. “Sherlock, I get it. Now try and remember you could have died?! This is probably some retribution for your usual way of behaving around things that could kill you…”

The irony: the one time Sherlock obeyed some sense of traffic laws, didn’t just run out into the road, showed some appreciation that being hit by a car was probably a Less Good thing, he was hit by a random Ford Fiesta and wound up with surgery on his knee and a two-month recovery period that was going to probably kill John.

There was a decent chance that John would kill Sherlock, given that the car hadn’t managed it.

The man remained splayed on the sofa, leg up, dramatically whining every time he so much as  _twitched_  the thing. “… shouldn’t allow licenses to…”

“Oh, don’t get me started,” John interjected, and stole away the tea before Sherlock knocked it over, and before it went cold. It seemed a pity to waste. “Behave, you idiot, and shut up. TV?”

“I want a  _case_.”

_And so it begins_ , John thought bitterly, as Sherlock busied himself on another rant.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It just popped into my mind: What if the famous Moran was actually John’s sister Harry? Using different names, she goes between two different worlds. And John, of course, knows this. Maybe Sherlock made another mistake when deducing about Harry; maybe the marks on the phone were actually there because she was a bit too forceful and sometimes her hands that shaked too hard after a successful kill. – anon

John closed his eyes, as Sherlock’s expression moved from his crowing, triumphant grin into the abrupt realisation that there was something, something  _important_ , that he had missed. “Of course,” he murmured.

Harry smiled, and her knife pressed into Sherlock’s throat with a little more emphasis. “Well, John,” Sherlock acceded, “exceptional job. I truly didn’t anticipate this.”

Usually, a statement like that would have been enough to inspire something like smugness, something absurd and whimsical and fuck, he looked impressed and distempered in equal measure, and John had nothing he could begin to say to make it better.

Harry had always been a law unto herself. For as long as John could remember, she had gone away and been her own person; married a lovely woman called Clara whom she had divorced but kept her married name.

Thus Harry Moran, nee Watson, became by increments – unexpected increments, and all while John had been a long way away, unable to watch or see or prevent – a goddamn  _assassin_.

John had simply come home to find that his sister was near enough gone.

Sherlock had found a decent excuse, and John had stuck with it because it was quite a lot easier than explaining.

Honestly, he had never  _dreamed_  that Harry had wound up working with Moriarty. Harry was his  _sister_ , somebody he loved and respected so stupidly much, and she was dangerous and she was idiotic but she was  _his sister_ , and he loved her completely and utterly and was terrified he would see her die on one of her missions, and really thought she was old enough to not wind up working with somebody like Moriarty.

John was not used to feeling afraid.

“Harry, for god’s sake,” he pleaded. “Let Sherlock go. Leave Sherlock alone,  _right now_. I’m assuming you’re being paid for it? We’ll match it. Exceed it.”

“It isn’t a job,” Sherlock drawled. “She’s following up a debt for Moriarty himself. She was asked. She is following his instructions post-mortem.”

Harry smiled slightly. “He is clever,” she told John quietly. “I’m sorry, John.”

“Please,” John asked again. “ _Please_ , Harry. For me. I’m with him, he’s my partner – Harry, I need him. Don’t ask me to lose him again.”

Honestly, John didn’t really believe it was true, when the knife fell from Sherlock’s throat.


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmescessst mmm. BDSM Dom!Mycroft. Sherlock comes down from his subhigh and Myc is there being so protective and loving and ugh – anon

Sherlock’s mind roamed, unable to stop whirring, a perpetual motion; thoughts competed with each other over the din as Sherlock sorted through each of them with as much control as he could, and it could never end. Never stopping, never quietening. _Never_.

Except here.

The abruptness was startling, painless immersion into ice-cold water, numb but alive, impossible to describe and quite frankly, words were superfluous. He simply  _was_ , and everything detached and fused and just  _stalled_  for an impossible moment, and he clung on as he was forced away from who he was and into something wholly new.

Mycroft’s hand remained against his cheek, sheltering, his voice hushing in in a way only Mycroft could adequately manage; his voice was calm epitomised, firm but kind, and it was something enough to cling to while his mind flew elsewhere.

The feeling of skin against skin, hearts still thumping in chests, breath and pulse and tangible things, something he could cling onto as borrowed stability.

Mycroft curled a hand around the back of his neck, pulling him in, cradling against his chest. “Calm, Sherlock,” he told his brother, his own aftershocks keeping his body occupied while his mind reached out to his brother, the connection more startling than anything he had words to describe.

Sherlock made to lash out, limbs weak and uncoordinated as he tried to steady himself. Cheeks damp, he allowed his breathing to slow, matching that of his brother.

"Good," Mycroft said simply, firmly, an almost-order; firm enough to be in control, loose enough to allow Sherlock to understand that the true test was over, that he could relax fully and remain safe.

The shift was subtle, but enough; Sherlock allowed himself to be pulled over onto Mycroft’s chest, his eyelids heavy as he drifted on the edge of sleep. In the morning his back would ache and sitting down comfortably would be out of the question for a few days. It didn’t matter for a while, unimportant. All was unimportant. Simply a moment, this moment.

Mycroft smiled very slightly, and let his eyes drift shut, his brother held to his chest.


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Might be a bit radical, but here we go: John sees his therapist for a normal appointment. His therapist believes that John has recovered from his war traumas well enough to break the news to John that he has been suffering from multiple personalities. Sherlock, all along, was a product of John’s imagination. :) – negative-ratio

“John, I would like to talk about something with you, if you think this would be a good time,” Lisa told him, voice gentle but insistent, watching John with something like concern. “I do need you to stay with me, and try to remain calm.”

John had never been quite so alarmed in his life. “Blimey, alright,” he returned, with a sideways smile. “Now I’m nervous. Go on?”

Lisa sat back a bit, glanced over him. “We’ve discussed symptoms of your dissociations at length, now – those episodes are less frequent now, am I right?”

“Yep, all good. Better since… well, better since Sherlock died, actually.”

For a long moment, Lisa was almost frighteningly quiet. “John – you have had no memory of your dissociative periods, some of which were quite protracted. Hours, days, even.”

_I dislike therapists. Idiots who believe they know more about the one topic on which one can safely claim to be an authority_.

John smirked at the half-remembrance, and retuned his attention back to Lisa. “I know, we talked about it,” John reminded her, a little bored, a little annoyed. “Why this again?”

“I’ve spoken to you, during some dissociative episodes, and John – John, I have reason to believe that you have some problems with identity, in those episodes. I spoke to you, and you believed yourself to be…”

“No,” John interjected, before she could finish the sentence. “Come on, I’m not thick. You think… Christ, you think I’ve got bloody multiple personalities!”

Lisa’s smile was kind and calm, oddly grounding. “In a sense,” she confessed, eyebrows knotted. “John, I spoke to an… an alter, if you will. He identified himself as Sherlock Holmes.”

Absolute quiet. John could have sworn the entire earth had stopped turning.

“What?”

“I researched Sherlock Holmes, when you came back for our sessions,” Lisa told him, voice a little quicker now, “and there was no sign of him. John, I believe your mind issued a type of defence. Something to allow you to heal – and his ‘death’ was a manifestation of your mind understanding he was no longer needed. You can survive on your own, without him. A part of that ‘alter’ still exists, but…”

John pushed back, standing up too-quickly, head spinning. “No,” he repeated again, with dangerous quiet, emphatic and angry. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t take away Sherlock.”

“I’m not…”

“We’re done here,” John told her flatly. “Fuck,  _fuck_ , we are  _done_.”

Lisa could only watch, as John stormed out.


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OK Jen, that was amazing angst, how can it possibly get any angstier? (haha, of course it can oh Queen of the Angst, ruler or the seven feels, regent of the cries) Any chance you could rip my heart out AND stomp on it by having Sherlock watch the video, see the body and/or watch Moriarty taunt John when Sherlock doesn’t pick up the phone either times? Xx - placeofold

_Psst_.

_Sherlock._

_Sher…lock_

_Psst._

_It’s me_.

Sherlock closed his eyes, and let out a soft, angry growl. “Out,” he commanded, as best he could. “Get out.  _Get out_.”

He could still see it, of course. Time passed in fractional increments, insufficient to heal the damage, to paper over cracks, the welts that had formed in Sherlock’s skin and psyche, where James Moriarty had crept in and twisted everything into ellipses where Sherlock had once held court in binary.

John had died like a soldier, like a friend. He had died without reacting to the jibes. He had died. He had  _died_. He had known, of course he had known, that he had known had been written in John Watson’s body, and Sherlock would carry knowledge of that, if nothing else: he had known. Sherlock and his work. Sherlock and his  _everything_. The phone was not indicative of anything wider.

John Watson had known. The knowledge lived in the curled corner of a lip, the corner of a smile that had existed in the fractional seconds before a giggle and a gunshot.

_Pay attention to me!_

_Pretty please_.

A college and corridors and the wrong building and shattered glass and a body, and that sound, John’s voice. Sherlock papered over Moriarty with John’s voice, and the cries of his name reached a cacophony, layered sound, both of them vying for his attention  _and he couldn’t grant it_. Moriarty just wanted to laugh, and John’s voice only screamed when Sherlock tried to pay attention to it.

_Look what you did._

_Naughty boy_.

“That’s enough.”

_Night night, Doctor Watson_.

The final words John had ever heard.

_Night night_.

Sherlock closed his eyes, and understood what PTSD  _meant_. What John had felt at three in the morning when nightmares hit and the terror began, to eat away inside your skin and hate and feel and want and loathe.

_Night night_.

Oh god.

_Night night_.


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I found this post and I think it’s a great idea if you like: “au where everything is the same, except sherlock became deaf due to an experiment when he was a teenager, and he meets john when mycroft hires him upon his return from afghanistan as sherlock’s interpreter and they solve crimes and sign snarky things back and forth to each other at crime scenes and they fall in love and press the words against each other’s skin” – anon

_Yes, sound enough analysis, but I was hoping you’d go deeper_.

John snorted, and rapidly signed back a series of further commentaries, translating out to a rather bemused DI Lestrade; Sherlock could speak, but he hated not being able to hear himself, so he had essentially decided to voluntarily render himself mute  _and_ deaf.

It was easy enough; John could merrily deal with anything Sherlock needed, and Sherlock near enough thought in sign language now. It was actually faster to use an interpreter than to wait for Sherlock’s attempts to speak in a coherent order, and obviously John was indispensable when it came to the police – or indeed anybody else – asking questions.

Sherlock corrected his intonation, from time to time, when John would speak aloud. It was odd. Just through observation, through the patterns of lips and breath and expression, he could see that requisite acerbity was lacking; he would take over in that moment, speak over John and inform those present of what he meant in  _precisely_  the vocabulary he wished.

When he spoke, he had a truly beautiful voice. John loved those fractured seconds, with an almost unused organ that held so much potential.

Kissing, and Sherlock’s gasps were everything, just as the burn of John’s fingers on his skin where everything.

They were everything.

_Do you want to_?

Sherlock looked at him with quicksilver intensity, and said “yes”, his voice a low murmuring purr.

John smiled, and his fingers tapped without conscious intention, and Sherlock smiled like the sun and John half-wondered what on earth he’d just said and could only-remember, it sifted through the edges of remembrance and was entirely true, but John didn’t think on it too hard, there was no need.

In the dark, and Sherlock was blinded to intonation. No way of hearing or speaking, and they trod carefully when there was a biological bar in their communication; John would press and tap and stroke words and encouragement and ideas into Sherlock’s sweat-slicked spine, and he would return with a moan and gasp, a  _please_  that sank into John’s very  _marrow_ , and when Sherlock cried out it was deafening and beautiful and John’s fingers struck arrhythmic patterns into him.

_I love you_.

Sherlock laughed softly, and John couldn’t breathe. “I love you, too.”


	45. Chapter 45

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can I have a Johnlock fic with Sherlock falling in love with John, but he doesn’t know how to say it, so he does it in little ways like getting jam or tea on occasion. One day John realizes it and simply says, ‘Love you too.’ Pretty pretty please? – anon

Sherlock came in with two shopping bags.

John was honestly a little nervous, especially given that he went straight for the fridge. Sherlock’s plastic bags could literally contain everything up to and including human organs, and the smell of the decomposing kidney still hadn’t quite dissipated.

Wordlessly, Sherlock disappeared.

John was aware that he could have murdered a cup of tea. Really. Only, the concept of looking in the fridge was actively frightening.

Twenty minutes later, nerves steeled, John Watson went to the fridge.

To Sherlock’s credit, the man did nothing by halves.

_Twelve_  bottles of milk. John didn’t have the faintest idea how he was going to get through that much milk before it went off, but that didn’t appear to have dissuaded his absolutely bizarre roommate.

A lone pot of jam stood in the middle of the centre shelf, just in front of the petri dishes Sherlock had stashed in there previously.

“Of course,” John sighed slightly, plucked out a bottle, and popped the kettle on.

-

Sherlock only made pretentious tea. Teapot and strainer and general tea-worship; apparently, if he was going to take thinking time out and devote it to a beverage, he was damn well going to devote that time to a  _decent_  beverage.

It was difficult to argue with, when expressed like that.

Meanwhile, John just quite  _liked_  normal tea. A teabag, stewed, a dash of milk; it was hardly complex, but Sherlock just didn’t understand the basic science of do-not-leave-teabag-in-for-three-hours or indeed necessary quantities of milk, so John didn’t ask.

When a cup of tea was placed in front of him, John’s unfortunate kneejerk response was one of immense distrust.

Sherlock barely hung around, just returned to the kitchen table and pretended to not be watching John out of the corner of his eye as the man took a sip, and couldn’t help but respond with mild shock; it was a  _very_  good tea.

“Love you too,” John called out to him, without turning around, just keeping his fingers on the cup.

The silence was echoing.

John began to wonder if he’d misjudged the situation.

The silence continued.

“I make better coffee,” Sherlock responded eventually.

John smirked into his tea, as Sherlock kept himself rather studiously busy.


	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh lord, could you please do a Hamish version of bringing the new girlfriend home for the first time? I loved the lily one and it would be amazing if I could read it on my birthday (Nov 11) to ring in 20! I love you’re writing so much! Xoxo – anon

Hamish, for the first time in near enough anybody’s recollection, looked nervous.

Elizabeth stood one foot behind, terror living somewhere in the back of her eyes, but otherwise ramrod straight and entirely composed in the face of two of the more famous – and indisputably more frightening – figures in the United Kingdom.

They watched her.

Dinner was pasta, given that it seemed the least likely to cause anybody offence nor be polluted by body parts. Honestly, John could make very nice pasta sauces, from scratch, and Sherlock even intermittently helped; while he wasn’t technically allowed in the kitchen without supervision, with an appropriate adult present he could make _incredible_  desserts, and even keep the kitchen from imploding.

Elizabeth was sharp and funny and beautiful.

Sherlock hated her, which was entirely unsurprising, and John just intermittently kicked him under the table; she could was an exceptional English and History student – emphasis on the former – and what was more, a musician.

Finally, Sherlock’s mercy appeared to have been piqued.

He noticed her glance to the violin, initially. “My pride and joy,” he said, nodding to the thing.

Elizabeth tangibly agreed, her fingers half-itching, the edging of a twitch. “The actual work is… I mean, I’ve heard recordings, Hamish played them to me.”

Hamish turned the colour of the tomato sauce, and Sherlock was tangibly lighting up. “I discovered the instrument from a man named Constantin; he was responsible for a very small studio, created violins. I assisted a client of his on a case, and must confess that the  _tone_  truly…”

John sighed slightly. Sherlock would be lost for  _days_  in his new anecdote.

Hamish, meanwhile, disconsolately stabbed at pasta.

It took them another moment or two to realise that Elizabeth was paying absolutely rapt attention to Sherlock, and not in a sycophantic way; she was watching with something like awe, something a  _lot_  like concentration, and both Holmes boys could only blink with vague disbelief.


	47. Chapter 47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Sherlock had Goldfield’s Syndrome? –L – anon

Sherlock opened his eyes, and realised there was somebody in bed with him.

“ _Who the fuck are you_?!”

John realised that perhaps it had been a misstep, and somewhat reluctantly conceded that he would need to make sure he didn’t do that in the future.

-

“You know me better than…”

John sighed slightly, and tried for an explanation,  _some_  form of explanation; every single time was another abortive attempt to make Sherlock Holmes understand that he had a very specific form of anterograde amnesia, and  _yes_ , John therefore knew him extremely well.

It would have been a lot harder if Sherlock wasn’t Sherlock. As it was, he could deduce vast amounts of what was happening without John needing to expand too far into his explanations.

After all, as far as Sherlock was concerned, what mattered was the cases.

-

Sherlock had a book.

John had been with Sherlock for a year and a half, give or take. He knew Sherlock better than Sherlock did, quite frankly. John could predict the response on a given morning from just his expression as he opened his eyes and reached cognisance, and had insisted – quite early on – that Sherlock create a book of day-to-day necessities.

The man had agreed. He left extensive case notes, and slept, and could catch up in the morning.

John was just John, and Sherlock just accepted him as a  _fact_.

Honestly, John could put up with it.

-

Two years.

“I’m Doctor John Watson,” John said with a smile, and watched Sherlock with tired care, cataloguing the angle of expression and just how far it had contracted, whether or not he knew or wanted to know or would be capable of understanding today.

“And I’m asexual, so why is your body language indicating otherwise?”

-

Sherlock was staring into his microscope, very still, too still. “John,” he asked after a moment. “What’s the date? The actual date?”

John closed his eyes. “Seventh of January.”

“Oh. I’m thirty-seven, then.”

“Yes,” John agreed; Sherlock’s birthday had been the previous day. Cake and a waste of time, as far as the man himself was concerned, but they had kissed like first-time loves and it had seemed somehow beautiful, in its own way. “Happy day after birthday.”

“Indeed,” Sherlock murmured, and didn’t say another word.

-

“Where’s Mycroft?”

John didn’t speak, couldn’t speak.

Sherlock only asked once in a while, very rarely, mercifully rarely, and John had  _said_ that he should write it down in the book but he never had, and it was only in the rare moments when Sherlock asked – and John had to tell him – that it made awful sense just  _why_  he never mad e a note of it.

Better to be told once in a while, then to know every single morning, upon waking.

-

Sherlock was smiling at his ring. “John,” he asked softly. “How did we…?”

“We were on a case, and you just… said it,” John replied lightly. “You wrote it down in your book that it was going to happen, and so it happened… I booked everything, organised it, and you just…. You never seemed to find it that problematic.”

“I am a man of impeccable taste,” Sherlock returned, with curious softness, and John couldn’t help his smile.

-

Every morning.

Every single  _bloody_  morning.

John didn’t know how he was still doing it, how he could bear the same question, the one question that hurt more than anything on the earth and always would, and John let himself believe that one day Sherlock wouldn’t need to ask, because otherwise it would just be too much to cope with:

“Who are you?”


	48. Chapter 48

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay so idk if you’ve been watching Masterchef but there was this guy, Liam, and he really reminded me of Andrew Scott’s Moriarty and he looked like a younger him and he just got sent out and I am actually really, super upset because he was totally my favourite (and he was SUCH A CUTIE!) and so I was wondering if I could have Chef!Moriarty being either super cute and awesomely chef-like, or evil and he deliberately poisons someone’s food? I don’t care, just chef!Moriarty, pretty please?? <3 – anon

Sherlock winced; he could  _hear_  the man humming, for god’s sake. He  _never stopped_. Sherlock had tried shouting, tried texting, tried throwing pillows in the direction of the door, but nothing,  _nothing_  would stop his damned bloody sodding irritating lover from humming.

Finally, he was driven to the extreme.

Sherlock stood up.

He padded towards the door and out into the kitchen. James Moriarty stood, well bounced, in front of the oven, topless and humming some god awful song.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock managed as Jim swirled around, sweeping the man into a ballroom hold and all but waltzing around the kitchen. "Off!" Sherlock tried, squirming, but Jim held him tight, stealing a quick kiss. Sherlock licked him lips. "…Curry?"

"Mmmhmmm," Jim replied, smirking. "Something nice and spicy”.

"Do I want to know what meat you are using?" Sherlock managed, looking over at the bubbling pot.

"Cook’s secrets," Jim winked, as Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"You would never use human, it would ruin the flavour," he pointed out.

Jim sighed dramatically, voice perfectly mournful: “Alas, tis true. Human requires very different cooking techniques. Deduce it for me,” he demanded with a snap of a grin, offering Sherlock a spoonful.

"If I do so will you please, for the love of all things sacred, stop humming?" Sherlock asked, as Jim blew on the food to cool it.

"Helps me cook," Jim shrugged, offering the spoon.

Sherlock accepted begrudgingly - but the man was truly an excellent chef. Classically trained; apparently his original calling, before general mayhem had a vacancy.

"Lamb," Sherlock replied easily, "Mutton actually."

"That’s my clever boy," Jim beamed, reaching onto tiptoes to peck Sherlock once more on the lips. "See, you’re so much sharper when I lower your solution…" he murmured; Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, body taking on a slight edge of tension. “Shh, love, I’ll hit you up after dinner," he continued, body flush against Sherlock’s. "Then we can have some fun, yeah?"

Sherlock didn’t reply, the promise of a hit too fresh in his ears.

"Stop your humming," he managed, moving away.

"As you wish," Jim bowed, almost dropping the spoon. Sherlock sighed, settling back onto the sofa. A few seconds of blissful silence.

"LET IT GOOOO, LET IT GOOO!"

_"Shut up!"_


	49. Chapter 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello sweeties! I know you have a lot of work and prompts to do, so it doesn’t matter the time you take on this, I will wait. I want some Mystrade and Johnlock please! Sherlock with this deductive powers finds out that Lestrade is dating his brother. Sherlock puts kind of jealous/protective/angry about that. Have fun :D – anon

It took barely a glance for Sherlock to freeze solid, eyes widening very slightly, expression locked somewhere between loathing and distrust.

Lestrade paused mid-explanation, looking from the detective to John, and back again, immediately nervous.

"Everything alright?" John asked curiously; Sherlock took a step closer to Lestrade, and sniffed, looking over him again.

A look of immense disgust solidified in his expression; he stepped back, narrowed his eyes, and essentially glowered.

"Three weeks?" he asked aggressively.

John looked to his lover, rather confused around the edges. “Sherlock, I don’t think the body was found until…”

"Your wife only threw you out  _two months ago,_ " Sherlock continued with mounting fervour, face going from red to pale, Lestrade half-mimicking and looking a little bit nauseous as Sherlock’s temper continued to rise.

"Sherlock it’s not…"

Sherlock silenced him with a look. “Are you intending on continuing it?” he asked frankly as John’s confusion increased.

"That really isn’t any of your business," Lestrade replied, a slight note of desperation in his voice.

"I suppose I should be flattered, you couldn’t have me, but I hardly think my brother is the next logical step…"

John abruptly understood. “Wait, you’re… you’re sleeping with Mycroft?” he managed, the sheer shock of it overriding Sherlock’s utter lack of manners.

Lestrade coughed as a few of his colleagues turned to look at them. “It really doesn’t concern you,” he stated, in a quieter voice. “And do shrink your damn head a bit, this has nothing to do with you.”

"Please, you favour dim-witted women, and incredibly intelligent men - much like John. Once we began dating you realised what you felt your life was lacking and apparently the way to fill that gap is to sleep with my sibling," Sherlock concluded.

Lestrade took a deep, calming breath, exhaling slowly. “Dating, Sherlock. Not just sleeping with him.”

"But you are?" John asked, Lestrade turning on him with a look of betrayal. "Sorry mate, but it’s… it’s Mycroft."

Lestrade gestured loosely at Sherlock, eyes slightly wide. “You can’t exactly talk!”

"Excuse me?" Sherlock asked, looking between the pair.

John couldn’t help nodding. “True.”

"I wouldn’t recommend angering him," Sherlock warned lightly.

"I wasn’t planning on it," Lestrade replied, before a quick side-look to John. "Unless he asks  _very_  nicely.”

John looked somewhere between laughing and nausea, Lestrade snorted with laughter, and Sherlock simply looked confused.


	50. Chapter 50

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can I please get some BAMF!John? In any capacity, really. I just need John being a total BAMF and maybe the Yarders being present for this? Thank you! Xx – anon

Sherlock’s head rolled, the punch leaving him dizzy. Blood trickled down from his nose, drizzling over his lips and dropping onto his collar. The bindings cut into soft flesh around his wrists as he tried once again to dislodge them.

"That shut you up, didn’t it?" his captor taunted in a sing-song voice, watching as Sherlock tried to remain conscious. "Scotland Yard is waiting outside…" the man continued, sliding forward, gun sliding over Sherlock’s skin. "But none of them can get in, oh no… else I’ll blow out all those clever brains…”

Sherlock didn’t respond, the metal cool and slimy against his face. Foolish. He had underestimated the man, passed him off as a simple sociopath; apparently not. The man had crafted quite an impressive trap, luring the detective down into the depths of a disused car park and trapping him there

"Are you done?" Sherlock spat, blood creaking down his lips. "Only, I am rather sick of villainous monologues…"

"Not until they agree to my demands," the man replied, one hand holding the walkie talkie, almost disinterested in Sherlock himself for a moment or two. "Isn’t that right, Inspector?"

-

Outside, Lestrade was in a state of panic. His phone was buzzing, various people were apparently Not Impressed with the way this was being handled. “We need to send someone in,” Donovan interjected, as he boss tried to think.

"He’ll shoot on sight."

"We can’t give him the deputy prime minister!" Donovan responded, not aiding Lestrade’s blood pressure.

His voice was inches from snapping: “I am aware of that. Do you have any other ideas?”

John Watson appeared, stepping out of a sleek black car and bounding over to the pair of them, expression intense and livid, opening his mouth to speak before Lestrade cut him off.

"Alive, single aggressor, sat in front of the entrance. The moment any of our men try to go in, Maxin will shoot.”

A succinct and easy description; John let out a short breath, silently contemplating various options. “Stand back,” he said after a moment, taking a step back, glancing over the entrance fully; he could get a sightline, albeit not a good one, if he moved quickly.

“John…”

John had already moved closer, looking back quickly to Lestrade and shooting a small smile. “Just make sure I get a sympathetic jury,” he asked lightly, and disappeared inside.

The extraction team were in a moment later, to find Maxin on the floor, clutching at his shoulder. John was by Sherlock’s side, already glancing over his injuries, the teams milling about and plucking him away with nothing short of confusion.

“That was…”

John glanced up at him, raised an eyebrow. “We should get a drink.”

Lestrade nodded mutely, and watched Sherlock get carted away, wondering just how much he didn’t know about John Watson.


	51. Chapter 51

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hello again gorgeous ladies! Raving masochist here with this prompt (and please feel free to rip my heart out - repeatedly). BBC sherlock, John straight after the Reichenbach fall. I want him in custody answering for what Sherlock has done, going home and explaining to Mrs Hudson, begging himself not to fall asleep otherwise he will see it happen, basically I want in-shock!John over the period of 12 hours from Sherlock’s fall. Make my chest hurt, and my eyes weep! xx ps Happy Holidays, xmas etc – placeofold

The questions washed over his head, and John blinked languidly and couldn’t respond, wouldn’t respond, tried to answer with sentences no longer cohering because they very simply couldn’t.

Sherlock’s body swum in front of John’s eyes, and he stared at the empty table and was guided away, found himself with Lestrade who looked frightened and John couldn’t understand why.

In the car, pavement blurred, thoughts blurred.

Too late, he was too  _fucking_  late.

Sherlock had lied to him, too. In those last stolen seconds, Sherlock had wasted breath lying to him when John  _knew_  the truth, he  _knew_  that Sherlock had always been genuine and that all of this, all of this was somehow wrong because it  _had to be_.

Mrs Hudson looked like she had been crying. Probably had been.

John hadn’t really cried, yet. There had been some shock-knee-jerk-reaction given that his best friend had killed himself in front of him, but tears, true tears, had yet to really come and probably wouldn’t for a little while yet because for now, it was enough to walk up the stairs –and the limb, the  _fucking_  limp was back, yes I  _know_  it’s psychosomatic you bastard but I’m allowed it, I’m fucking allowed it – and find himself in a flat that was devoid of its primary occupant.

Everything, everywhere, was Sherlock.

“I hate you,” John mumbled at the empty room, before crumpling into his armchair.

Sherlock’s spectre watched him condescendingly, because really, grief was such a superfluous thing to indulge in. “I know,” John muttered at him, “but I’m afraid I’m going to anyway.”

The smile was familiar and washed away with the salt on John’s lips, and when he screamed it was mute, trapped sound that needed escape but couldn’t find it. “ _I hate you_.”

“No, you don’t.”

John let out a slightly hysterical cackle, and realised he wouldn’t be able to sleep, because Sherlock’s voice would follow him under and he couldn’t bear that; he stayed awake instead, made himself endless cups of tea and cleaned, started cleaning, placing all of Sherlock’s things in a mounting pile until John could see how little space he occupied, how much of it was Sherlock.

Everything was Sherlock.

John woke in the morning splayed on a pile of chemistry books. He found himself half-curled around a microscope, Sherlock’s voice everywhere, and started to cry.


	52. Chapter 52

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello Lovely Ladies! I know that you have seen the new episode of Sherlock (and how nice is it to say that!), I was wondering, In the scenario Sherlock was explaining to Anderson, it meant that Sherlock was awake and could hear everything John said to him (he’s my friend, let me through he’s my friend). Could I have Sherlock listening to this, and maybe if possible, connecting it to him hearing johns voice during his time away? go nuts of angst/fluff/whatever you want. Thanks ever so much =) xx – placeofold

Sherlock had to transport himself very deeply into his mind palace; it rendered his mind and body disconnected, feigning death became considerably easier, and he was likely to be caught.

John’s voice barely registered. Sherlock could hardly afford it; John would distract, John would be in danger, and John needed to believe this more than anybody. John needed to be above suspicion and dissociated from Sherlock’s impending life, however long it took.

Nonetheless, buzz words would always impact with breathtaking emphasis, and being named a  _friend_  still somehow did not quite ring true. John was his friend, certainly, but his status to John was somewhat more precarious given that John was a normal human being and had no actual need for a man like Sherlock in his life.

Irrelevant. Moving on

John’s voice had remained somewhere. Some part of him, registering the presence and impact of a voice that was immensely distinct and very individual, and the curses and abrasive temper, the sarcasm and the care, they remained somewhere skimming the edges of Sherlock’s consciousness.

Initially, he ignored it. Filtered the sounds into a box in the drawing room, and paid it no further mind.

Only, as danger began to crawl around the edges of his actions, of events, he tried to hear the caught syllables and chastisements of a man who wasn’t quite there; he was too distance, he couldn’t be found, and Sherlock sunk into his mind palace and traced the rooms, stumbling into his drawing room to find a man sleeping on the lilo, glancing over him with weariness. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, standing in the doorway and smiling despite himself. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you. Thinking. You know, you should probably have a look around.”

Sherlock opened his eyes, in time to get over the head with something solid. “Next time, do it earlier,” the voice told him, with warm eyes watching.

Days are long stretches of time to endure alone, and Sherlock had never had a problem before; he had always managed to retain the knowledge that if all failed, he had someone to return home to. John was always there.

Now, he had taken residence in the drawing room, organised it to military precision and seemed to find Sherlock something of an annoyance  _in his own head_. “You have a lot of junk,” he pointed out, with a slight shrug.

“I  _like_  my junk.”

John snorted. “I know.”

Serbia. It didn’t promise to be a lot of fun to start off with, and Sherlock found himself rather desperately clinging to John’s voice; it kept him tethered, when pain threatened to send him soaring.

“Nearly over, Sherlock.”

“ _Brother-dear_.”

Sherlock grinned, all teeth. He was going home.

In that instant, John disappeared.


	53. Chapter 53

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have a Sherlock prompt if that’s okay: Sherlock requested that Mycroft not tell their parents about his death, because he wanted to keep them from worrying about him while he was gone. John meets them (at a party, on the street, wherever) and reveals that their son is dead. Mycroft (either present or arrives after the fact) must pick up the pieces and either A: lie to his parents and John about Sherlock still being alive, or B: Tell the truth despite it potentially putting Sherlock’s life in danger. THANK YOU! — falcon-fox-and-coyote

It was a social event, that was all, a large social for the Met Police; it transpired that Sherlock’s father was connected to somebody-or-other, and John was introduced to them by Greg, who did so with an appropriately funereal expression.

“Ah, I was hoping the pair of you would be here,” Mrs Holmes beamed, embracing John like a long-lost child. “Myc was awful, tried to put us off at all possible costs – I know Sherl’s been busy, and things like this are hardly his forte, but he hasn’t been in touch for a while and I knew he’d be with you. By the sounds of it, you’ve been an excellent influence…”

John was honestly, truly confused. “Sorry, you’re… you’re looking for Sherlock?”

“Naturally,” Mr Holmes supplemented, and  _god_ , but they barely seemed possible as his parents. They were completely and entirely  _normal_ , so much so it was utterly surreal. “Has he gone to hide?”

“I… Sherlock’s dead, he’s… I’m sorry, I’m confused.”

Both parents were terrifyingly still. “Sherlock’s dead?” Mrs Holmes repeated slowly, as John glanced between them with naked horror. “My  _son_?!”

“I think we need Mycroft,” John said quickly, and pulled out his phone; Mycroft was supposedly somewhere on site, but being Mycroft, was probably skulking somewhere unseen; he mercifully picked up nearly instantly. “Mycroft?!”

“John,” Mycroft returned, rather warmly. “Could conversation not suffer another ten minutes, before we inevitably encountered one another in this ghastly event?”

“Your parents are here, and I think they need some explanations about Sherlock.”

Mycroft was silent.

He was then, terrifyingly,  _there_.

“Mother?”

Mrs Holmes had gone rather white. John really couldn’t blame her, under the circumstances, and looked to Mycroft with an expression that screamed for an explanation; Mycroft, meanwhile, was still to the point of lethality, and was not showing signs of imminently speaking.

Eventually: “I didn’t want to upset you,” he said softly, looking between the two of them. “Some of the circumstances… the manner of death, some of the paperwork is still being finalised, and I wanted to tell you when we were in full possession of necessary information.”

It simply wasn’t fair. The Holmes parents had no interest in media, in popular gossip, only ever read the broadsheets on a Sunday morning and knew nothing of celebrity news. Sherlock’s death hadn’t even slightly blipped their radar, despite the coverage, and Mycroft – in his infinite wisdom – hadn’t decided to tell them.

Mycroft, for the first time in John’s memory, looked truly as though matters were becoming too much to cope with. He had barely been thus at Sherlock’s funeral; telling his parents had clearly been a step beyond what he had ever wanted to cope with.

“How?”

“Suicide,” John supplemented, before Mycroft had a chance, and John could hear his ears ringing with anger and resentment that what should have been a calm enough evening had turned, once again, into a Sherlock-orientated nightmare. Not again, he had promised this would end.

Mycroft looked half his age.

John took his leave, allowing a family to shout and grieve and try to find some form of conclusion however they could, his own world imploding quietly.

_Fuck you, Sherlock_.


	54. Chapter 54

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jen! I’m having lots of empty hearse feelings! can you do a scene where John knew that it was Sherlock in the restaurant, but didn’t want to look up/get his hopes up that he was just hallucinating his voice again. – placeofold

John had grown so use to shadows of Sherlock’s voice that really, hearing it yet again was not exactly constructive; he had more important things to be getting on with, focused on the woman he loved, the woman he had spent over a year knowing and falling in love with, a woman who made him smile in a way Sherlock had never been capable of doing.

It almost made sense, that he would hear Sherlock now. Just as he actually made the big shift into ‘moving on’, as he finally  _acknowledged_  that Mary was not a replacement or a substitute but something far more and greater, he found Sherlock waiting for him.

As he waited for Mary to arrive, he realised that Sherlock’s voice was particularly persistent tonight.

Again: it made sense. It made sense because it had to make sense, and he was so close.

Mary looked beautiful. She always did. Mary lit up his world, and the voice disappeared for a moment while she sat down and smiled in a way that was slightly cocky and all brilliant, and John began to valiantly search for words.

_Christ_ , the waiters were persistent. And all sounded like Sherlock, again, that same oaky timbre that infected what would have otherwise seemed perfectly normal speech.

Mary could see where the conversation was headed. Good. John found words and kept going, as Mary stifled a wider smirk and John felt more at home, finally felt more at home.

Sherlock.

John couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

Mary was caught in utter, abstract but quite tangible horror.

John still couldn’t breathe, and was struggling with not  _killing_  the man; it was definitely a possibility, and it  _couldn’t be_  Sherlock, it couldn’t be. Sherlock Holmes was dead, and he had the worst fucking sense of timing in the entire world bar none.

He truly did have shit timing.

Oh  _god_ , it was real.

The voice. His  _face_.

Mary’s voice was actually more of an anchor, kept him grounded and made him remember, made him love again properly and not be frightened at the abrupt emergence of somebody in another life and another world.

Punching Sherlock was definitely the most satisfying thing John had ever done.


	55. Chapter 55

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I know the fandom has just imploded under the weight of all our feels, so just a little prompt… A young Sherlock, and Redbeard, play at pirates. Bonus points for roping in Mycroft. Double bonus points if Mycroft gets a hug (why does Mycroft never get a hug?!). –volcanicplug

Sherlock’s breath caught, heart pounding in his chest as he heard the door creak open. Placing a hand down to his first mate’s neck, he stilled his trusty companion, who obediently remained utterly silen. His other hand went over his own mouth. Just in case.

From behind the curtain he could hear the prowling steps of her majesty’s finest – the commodore.

“I know you’re in here!”

Sherlock remained silent, taking his hand down from his mouth, he gripped his sword. Eyes flicked down to Redbeard; they would fight this one to the end.

“Come out captain…” the commodore continued, voice a low purr, British through and through. “… and I shall show mercy…”

The footsteps were closer now, inches away; a low chuckle, and Sherlock’s eyes widened.

“Your time… is…” Sherlock watched a hand curl around the edge of the curtain, body tensing in readiness. “Up!”

“Not so fast!” Sherlock cried, bounding to his feet and drawing his sword in one motion, letting go of Redbeard; his trusted companion bounded forward towards a momentarily alarmed-looking Mycroft. “I won’t go down without a fight!”

“ _Argh_!” Mycroft yelled, pretending to bat Redbeard away as the dog started to lick him excitably. “Get this beast off of me!”

Sherlock straightened to his full height, standing on a slight angle, hat askew on his head. “Only if you allow me to pass,” he stated grandly, watching his first mate torture the enemy.

Mycroft continued to suppress a smile, petting Redbeard surreptitiously as he got rather overexcited, while still pretending the thing was eating him. “Alright, you have bested me this time, captain.”

 Sherlock grinned, before remembering that he was supposed to be serious: “And give me back the booty you stole,” he demanded, chin upwards; Mycroft was already nearly thirteen and was far better at reaching into the high up places that her majesty often hid the best treasure.

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “That biscuit was mine, you’ve already eaten yours,” he pointed out, Redbeard panting happily, Mycroft’s hand idly stroking the top of his head.

“ _YARGH_ , but I wanted the  _chocolate_ one!” Sherlock responded, jabbing Mycroft with the tip of his sword emphatically.

The smirk could no longer be contained, as the pirate captain went into a sulk. “Well then, Captain Sherlock…” he swooped down, picking up the young boy. “Why don’t we see if we can’t find some more? Since I’m your captive now.”

“Yargh!” Sherlock agreed happily, thrusting his sword into the air before wrapping his arms tightly around his big brother’s neck. “Onwards!”

“Ay ay captain,” Mycroft laughed, shifting Sherlock onto his back and carrying the boy into the kitchen.


	56. Chapter 56

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you don’t mind, I have a prompt: Mycroft used to sing a certain song (‘You are my sunshine’ maybe?) whenever he takes care of Sherlock when he’s sick or drugged up/going through withdrawals. Sherlock has deleted this information, but he unconsciously hums the song from time to time. One day John gets curious. – anon

It was just such an  _odd_  song for Sherlock to sing; he never sang, never, unless ill or stressed or exceptionally out of it, at which stage he was usually far more tied to his violin. Singing was a rarity.

Of course now, Sherlock had severe food poisoning, and was presently whining on the sofa with a hot compress over his stomach and a sick bowl to one side, otherwise bluntly ignoring his illness to continue working.

“Why that song?”

Sherlock stopped. Looked over, glared.

“What song?”

John smirked slightly. “You were  _singing_. You never sing, and it’s always that song when you do. Just wondering why  _that_  song.”

Sherlock’s eyebrow raised halfway through the statements, halfway to his hairline within a moment or two. He didn’t reply for a fairly long while, before fairly primly: “No idea what you mean.”

“Yes you do,” John smirked, and returned to his tea; Sherlock refused to say a word further, sniffing slightly as though the entire affair were very far beneath him, and silence fell.

_You make me happy…_

Sherlock and John looked at each other with comedic unison. “You’re right,” Sherlock said aloud – John wished he could have recorded that particular statement – and closed his eyes.

John immediately knew he’d gone into his mind palace. Sherlock wasn’t precisely subtle; he tended to look like he was having some sort of seizure, which had been alarming the first handful of times but was now fairly passé.

When Sherlock opened his eyes, he looked unhappy. Deeply, utterly unhappy. “It’s not in there,” he murmured to John. “Whatever happened, it… it leads me to a point in my life I prefer to forget, it should have all  _gone_. Why is it still in my head?”

“It could…”

Sherlock ignored him, dragging out his phone and already dialling; he held it up to his ear, pacing, ignoring John’s posturing behind him. “Mycroft, why do I know  _You Are My Sunshine_?”

There was a moment of evident surprise, Mycroft not speaking. “ _Mycroft_. I know it from my dark space, and I somehow doubt my dealers would have sung it at length, and I know you used to know it so  _why_  is it in my head?”

Sherlock fell entirely silent. John couldn’t hear a word, but could simply watch Sherlock’s entire being alter irrevocably; he became somehow smaller,  _younger_ , listening to Mycroft’s words. “I understand,” Sherlock said in the end, so quietly, fragile somehow.

He hung up, glanced over at John.

“Mycroft?” John asked curiously.

Sherlock nodded, so quiet, so strange. “He looked after me,” Sherlock explained. “He… that song. I  _remember_.”

John reached out, placed a hand briefly on Sherlock’s.

“He loved me so much.”

There was nothing whatsoever John could say, and so he stayed carefully quiet.

_He still does_ , went unsaid, but was there all the same.


	57. Chapter 57

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Molly Hooper has always had crushes on boys. Until she starts to notice she has been glancing at girls butts and noticing girls more. She doesn’t really know what is happening. She is totally fine with queer people, John and Sherlock finally got together and all their friends were fine with it so she knows that her sexuality will not be a problem to others. But she struggles on the inside. Eventually, a talk with Sherlock in the lab allows her to figure things out for herself. Thanks xx – anon

Honestly, Molly had very little idea what to do with herself.

It wasn’t a  _problem_. The issue was just that she had never, ever needed to think about it. Molly Hooper had planned out her life with a fair amount of predictability: job, marriage, a kid or two, retirement, death. Fairly quiet, and punctuated by associations with people she had never expected and little twists and turns that would be negotiated and worked through and end quite easily.

What she did not expect, and definitely did not  _like_ , was that – apparently – she was attracted to women. It didn’t fit in. In a world of plans and ideas and little things that she had always held to be fact, it seemed impossible that one fundamental would be so easily removed.

“You’re concerned about something.”

There was no point in denying it; of all people, Sherlock Holmes knew when people were lying.

“When you realised you were… you liked, I mean… John, I mean… what did you…”

“I panicked, and didn’t speak to him for almost a week and a half. I had never anticipated having any form of attraction or true tie to another human being; my work is my priority, and it was somewhat – disconcerting – to appreciate that John had become just as profound a priority. I would assume from your demeanour and recent behaviour that we are discussing an attraction to somebody who has  _surprised_ you, perhaps?”

Molly shrugged slightly. “It’s just,” she explained tentatively, “they’re girls. The people I’m looking at now, I mean, now you’re not interesting… I don’t, I don’t mean… I mean, not not-interesting, but…”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, still preoccupied with his microscope. “Precisely which aspect is causing distress?” he asked drily. “I strongly suspect that a relationship with somebody whom you find physically attractive is likely to be very fulfilling. In my admittedly limited experience. There is surely little harm in testing? If it turns out to be a temporary anomaly, it would be possible to write it off eventually, but if not, then you are potentially indulging in self-flagellation for absolutely no reason whatsoever.”

Molly couldn’t honestly fault the logic.

Sherlock glanced up. “You deserve happiness,” he told her frankly, and returned to his microscope.

He didn’t say another word, entirely lost in his work.

Molly stood for a moment, thinking. “Thank you,” she said to him, after a little while, and disappeared out of the lab with a small smile and a flourish of excitement somewhere in her chest.


	58. Chapter 58

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few days again a gifset that said: “Hamish falls ill and when his fever won’t break John and Sherlock rush him to the hospital where the staff and doctors do their best to make the young boy better… but nothing seems to be working” Hope you guys can make it true. thanks :D – anon

Hamish was shivering frantically, sobbing out in a way that both of his parents found utterly alien; Hamish never cried, as a rule. He was stoic and sarcastic and brilliant, and not the type for tears or outbursts or petulance or this type of raw vulnerability.

“Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson…”

“Less in the way of formalities, and a little more about the state of my son?” Sherlock snapped immediately, entirely unamused by the moron opposite; Hamish was incredibly unwell, they knew it, and Sherlock was far more concerned about getting some actual  _advice_.

The doctor’s expression told them all they needed to know. “Doctor Watson…”

“I want to see his charts. I know it isn’t routine, but god  _damn it_ , I will make your lives unpleasant if you don’t,” John told them, bereft of his usual livid immediacy in moments like this. He seemed somehow slower, lethargic and pained now Hamish was out of his reach, and he knew medical men. He knew the tone of voice that spoke of helplessness and wishes, of regret, and apology.  John had done the same more times than he could count, had to find the right chemistry of words to make somebody’s grief less acute, and he would naturally fail. Nothing would help.

Sherlock had gone terrifyingly quiet. “I cannot lose him,” he said simply, so quietly John almost didn’t hear him.

John’s hand reached out, closed over Sherlock’s. “Me neither,” John said softly, and Sherlock glanced over at him, eyes wide and brokenly frantic; all of Sherlock’s energy, his brilliance, and it wouldn’t be enough. It could never be enough for something like this.

They waited.

-

“I’m so sorry.”

Sherlock hadn’t spoken. John was managing better, at least externally. John was getting them through, and was very simply refusing to let go of Sherlock’s hand.

“Was there anything?” he asked, voice bitten-off, shattered.

Molly shook her head; a mixed sort of blessing. “There wasn’t anything you could have done,” she told them, him, tremulous and so horrifically sad. “If there’s anything I can…”

Sherlock walked away abruptly.

John felt the absence of him wrench, arm suspended for a heartbeat to reach out, fingers straining for the warmth of Sherlock’s touch, falling back to his side, empty.


	59. Chapter 59

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmescest prompt! Sherlock and Mycroft had a not quite relationship that ended when Sherlock started doing drugs. Now, Mycroft had gotten into a relationship with someone else. When John finds Sherlock sulking, he encourages him to do so etching about it. – anon

Sherlock was barely speaking, instead stabbing at laptop keys with general aggression and true hatred, petulant and angry which was perpetually Sherlock’s way of illustrating that he was hurting beyond all possible measure.

“What happened?” John asked, quite gently.

Sherlock looked at him, looked over every inch of him.

John knew. He had always known, ever since he had first met Mycroft Holmes and seen Sherlock’s response, since he had seen the way the pair looked at one another and the way they loved one another in a way that was livid and angular and far beyond filial and far less than friends, and they loved one another with the same fervour that they hated one another.

And so, Sherlock had told him.

“How’s Mary?”

“Ah. So it’s to do with Mycroft?”

John smirked, as Sherlock’s expression lifted in absolute and ridiculous disbelief; only John would ever be able to know him well enough.

Except that Sherlock only ever asked about Mary when he had Mycroft on his mind. When he was jealous and desperate, and saw how in love John and Mary were, and despised how alone he was himself.

“He found a goldfish.”

John attempted to work it out, came vaguely close, wasn’t entirely certain. “Mycroft… he’s…?”

“Mycroft has a boyfriend,” Sherlock managed, in a strange, petulant mimicry of a child he once would have been. “Not me, obviously. He still will not be with me. He refuses to be with me.”

“Sherlock, you know why,” John explained, not unkindly. “You…”

“That was  _years ago_ , I don’t know why he’s  _still upset_.”

John rolled his eyes, shaking his head slightly; for a genius, Sherlock could be truly, impressively stupid. “Sherlock, he found you taking drugs. You were an addict, and  chose your drugs over him – that isn’t something you  _forget_ , any more than you can forget that he left at all.”

Sherlock looked at John steady, eyes fixed, with an echo of vulnerability John half-recognised. “I cannot abide the thought,” he murmured.

Both remained in quiet for a moment, silence cloaking them, throttling them.

“Why don’t you just talk to him?” John asked, with the slow weariness of one accustomed to not being listened to when suggesting such theories. “He loves you. He’s your brother. Actually  _talk to him_ , apologise, and make an effort.”

“But…”

“You didn’t prioritise him before, he has no reason to believe you would now,” John pointed out, getting into his stride a little. “Do it now. Put him first.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “He’s in a relationship. He’s  _happy_.”

John felt like he’d been over the head, hard, with something very solid. “You really do love him,” he noted aloud, still stunned.

Sherlock actually  _flushed_ , expression steadily mutinous.

Another protracted moment of absolute silence.

“Just talk to him,” John repeated again, more gently this time, moving to stand. “I’m getting tea, do you want anything?”

Sherlock, of course, didn’t speak.

John did see him reach into his pocket, however, and pull out his phone with an expression caught between wistful, desperate and livid.


	60. Chapter 60

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi!! i love your work!! I’ve got a johnlock ask if you aren’t too busy: Sherlock is getting more restless and bored by the minute so John shoves him out the door for an hour and when Sherlock comes back, he finds John has hidden all the pieces to a puzzle throughout the flat and Sherlock has to find them. Just something fluffy and cute :) thank you lovelies! – ottersandhedgehogs

“…and I am still _bored_ , John, this has been a worthless form of day which I deeply resent having in the back catalogues of my existence, and quite  _why_  you felt it necessary to exile me from my own home for no evident reason is…”

There was something different. Something in the flat had been altered, and Sherlock couldn’t quite work out what yet; he looked around, sense things had been  _moved_ , items out of alignment and everything at odd angles.

It was not messy. That was what concerned him. Items move perpetually when neatness is not a priority and order is in a state of flux, but this was  _designed_.

“John?”

John appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, looking a touch frazzled but otherwise rather pleased with himself. “There are various things wrong with the flat,” he explained contentedly. “Find them, work out why and what it all means. It’ll keep you busy, given that god knows I’m inches from killing you at the moment.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, glancing around him, at everything that was out of line; he followed one disturbed pattern of dust, finding the notable  _absence_  of what he had expected. “Yes, there are red herrings,” John commented, looking faintly insulted that Sherlock hadn’t thought a little better of him. “Go on. I’ll make you some tea.”

“ _Tea_?!”

John nodded, unperturbed. “I like tea, and you’ll get bored and interrogate me soon enough – if may decide it’s easier than looking like any normal person would – and for that, we’ll both want tea.”

Sherlock looked honestly flabbergasted, a word John had written off years ago as unusable and never actually appropriate until the moment Sherlock epitomised it. “And this is because you…”

“Care.”

Silence, and Sherlock’s expression hadn’t become any more coherent.

“Well then,” he said, after a few moments, visibly trying to realign his sanity. “Thank you, John. Also, if you have moved Victor again…”

John just snorted, and headed into the kitchen without a further word.


	61. Chapter 61

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could I maybe have a fic where Sherlock has nightmares from the Serbian prison so John helps him and sees his scars? – anon

Two in the morning

John had never heard Sherlock scream like that. He had heard men in Afghanistan, those haunted by memories John now held onto in the backs of his memory – but Sherlock, never. Sherlock didn’t dream.

Except now he did. His mind, too-aware, forcing a screaming and breakable form of consciousness onto him.

He was mostly awake when John burst in, panting from the abrupt exertion of needing to sharply wake and fall out of bed, finding Sherlock staring at him with unmitigated panic. “John?”

“Sherlock,” John confirmed, breathless. “What happened?”

Sherlock couldn’t speak for a moment; John moved closer, dropping down to Sherlock’s side, intentionally lower in the hope of not scaring the man further.

“Nightmare,” Sherlock admitted roughly, after a long moment. “I didn’t mean to wake you…”

John was already waving him off. “Don’t be ridiculous. It happens. While you were away…?”

“I encountered certain unpleasant figures,” Sherlock completed, jaw tight, glancing at John with defensive hostility. “I’m fine, John.”

“Yes, the screaming was a brilliant example of that.”

Sherlock shot him a look of active hostility, and John let out a small sigh. “Alright. Point taken. Look – I’m just concerned. Mary is too.”

“I don’t…”

“You don’t sleep,” John returned immediately. “Mary knows it. I know it. Stop lying, Sherlock. What happened?”

For a long moment, John honestly thought Sherlock would either punch him, or remain mute for the rest of their lives. “I was beaten and tortured by Serbian terrorists,” he said simply, staring at John in a way clearly intended to be deeply intimidating.

John just nodded. “Are you looking after yourself physically?”

“I have scarring, nothing more. Mycroft’s  _team_ ,” Sherlock seemed to spit the word, “were amply useful. Want to see?”

Again, aggression; John was simply not fazed by it. “Do you want to show me?”

For a moment, Sherlock seemed sideswiped.

A minute of contemplation, then hesitantly, quietly: “Yes.”

John nodded, no judgement or preconceptions, and let Sherlock show him.


	62. Chapter 62

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I was wondering well on the first episode of season three Sherlocks parents are so normal but accepting people, can you show Sherlock and my offs childhood with there parents? If not that’s okay but thank you anyway – crazy-the-new-normal

“Sherlock, that is  _entirely_  unacceptable.”

Mummy was cross. Sherlock couldn’t blame her. But Mycroft had been horrid first and he didn’t precisely  _regret_  hiding Mycroft’s cello bow; Myc had been very hysterical and panicky and Sherlock had giggled a bit and eventually snuck out and put it back exactly where it had started, but Mummy had deduced everything by then and he was now in Big Trouble.

Sherlock pouted.

“No, don’t even try it,” Mummy warned. “You apologise, right now, or I’m getting your father.”

Sherlock’s eyes turned wide; Daddy was never cross with Sherlock, not really, but he was scary if Mummy was cross and then he  _did_  get cross and Sherlock  _hated_  when Daddy was cross with him.

“M’sorry,” he muttered, rather petulantly.

Mummy raised an eyebrow, as the door opened to admit the other Holmes parent. “Darling, could you come here a moment – Sherlock’s been playing tricks again.”

Mycroft was sitting to one side. Fourteen and quite definitely hormonal – Sherlock had been reading up on it – he was livid with his younger brother, and definitely didn’t mean well.

Daddy came into the living room, and Sherlock had gone a little bit pink. “I only hid it, I didn’t  _do_ anything to…”

“… you’re  _not_  helping your case, Sherlock Holmes…”

“… damage it, and I…”

“… I needed to practise!”

“… that’s enough Mycroft, leave him alone.”

_“All of you, quiet_.”

Silence fell immediately. Sherlock and Mycroft exchanged looks. The latter smiled very slightly. Sherlock stuck his tongue out.

Daddy sighed. “Sherlock. Would you like to explain why? And what exactly it is that you hid?”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment. He fidgeted. Fidgeted a bit more. “I was bored,” he mumbled. “Myc was busy. S’all.”

Everybody was quiet for a moment or two. “Alright,” Daddy said, still sighing slightly. “Both of you – yes, you too Mycroft – need to learn that you only have each other. One day, your mother and I won’t be here, and you’ll need each other. Now please, Sherlock, apologise.”

“M’sorry, Myc.”

Mycroft nodded, a little primly. “I forgive you,” he returned benevolently.

Daddy intervened before Sherlock found another sharp retort. “Good. That’s better. Now Sherlock, no experiments until the end of the week, that is your punishment. Don’t push it.”

Mummy was smiling slightly, watching her husband in action with entirely unconcealed love.

She would still watch him with the same expression fifteen years later.


	63. Chapter 63

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Can you do me a Sherlock prompt? Sherlock and John both work for Moriarty. John’s a sniper and Sherlock is Moriarty’s ‘arm candy. They both hate each other. Thanks! – itsrachsimpson

Sherlock glanced over the idiotic ex-soldier that Jim insisted on keeping around, his expression somewhat merciless. “Watson,” he said coldly, straightening slightly to match the perfect posture the other man perpetually maintained. “I assume this is important?”

John’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. He was such a strange homely-looking man, not the type Sherlock would have expected to be working and merciless sniper.

“Of course it’s bloody important,” John returned – so  _uncouth_ , Sherlock would never understand why Jim put up with the man – and rolled his eyes at Sherlock’s expression. “I need you with me for this one, I have a mark that will need distracting if I’m going to get a clear shot, and you’re the resident whore, so you’ll have to do.”

Sherlock reflexively lashed out with a punch, that John caught and twisted back on him without a heartbeat of hesitation; Sherlock could put a truly brilliant fight, but he was outmatched against an army soldier with a good number of years’ experience. “Don’t,” John snarled in Sherlock’s ear, and let him go.

Dignity and clothing somewhat ruffled, Sherlock neatened himself up, and stared at John with a merciless expression. “Accompanying where, precisely?”

“A dignitary’s dinner,” John told him drily. “Moriarty is naturally going, but you will need to flirt with the mark.”

“Jim won’t be delighted.”

John smiled at him faintly, mercilessly. “Work that out between yourselves. I have no interest in knowing. Get the job done.”

Sherlock granted a short, simple nod. “Until next time, Watson.”

John’s expression had returned to careful neutrality. He gave an officious nod, and disappeared a heartbeat later, Sherlock’s eyes following him.


	64. Chapter 64

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just want one where mummy holmes met daddy holmes at uni and mummy holmes plays hard to get and daddy holmes is just like ‘whatever it takes’ and he almost gave up and mummy holmes was like ‘oh fine’ but she loves him too and theyre head over heels for each other and u gH – sherclot

Violet was possibly the most incredible woman Siger had ever met in his entire life, bar absolutely none. Spectacularly beautiful, and intelligent in a way that made Siger feel actively unwell at points; she saw the world in a way entirely divorced from his own, and he loved to hear her speak, just because of it.

Cambridge was a beautiful place, and Siger loved it quite entirely. He watched Violet from a distance, initially; she would speak and move and  _be_ , and Siger’s eyes tracked her, finally managing a greeting with his throat half-closed and her eyes trained on him.

There was no doubt whatsoever, in his mind, that he wanted to be with Violet. She was everything he could have ever dreamed of, quite simply, and to lose the chance of her would near-enough destroy him.

“I would be… delighted, if you were to get a drink with me,” he ventured, one day, as she looked over the river and her eyes reflected just a fraction of all she could see. “At some stage, of course.”  
Violet glanced at him, raised an eyebrow slightly, her smile quirking the corners of her lips. “How direct,” she murmured. “I’m assuming romantic connotations?”

Siger nodded his head eloquently, and Violet smiled at him, directly at him; Siger’s heart was hammering in his throat, and he couldn’t breathe for a moment. “Maybe some time,” she acceded, and returned her gaze to the river.

Bolstered, Siger waited a handful of days.

“That drink?”

Violet laughed, glancing over him again. “You’re incorrigible,” she teased, and Siger just shrugged unapologetically.

Still, no definite answer.

It was on the fourth attempt. “Alright,” she conceded, with a playful sigh. “If I must.”

Siger grinned like an idiot, brought a bunch of flowers, and was a perfect gentleman.

There was no pretending: Violet had been completely entranced by Siger, ever since he had spoken in poetry, where she could only see facts. The river, to him, moved in a way that was more than angles and numbers, and his world was beautiful in a way she would never understand.

He spoke to her with gentle passion and truer want than anybody else ever could.

Violet slipped her hand into his, and let him fly her away.


	65. Chapter 65

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi, you amazing ladies! I have been reading your fills like forever and never sent a prompt. Now this one is stuck in my head - Sherlock gets a concussion (reasons up to you - explosion, blow to the head) and he cannot quite concentrate since then. So he is utterly devastated and John becomes even more important for him. Thanks. – hellotumba

Something so stupid, so damned  _plebeian_.

Sherlock had been working, naturally. The idiot was always working, often to his detriment, and never quite so profoundly as when chasing a suspect and being clubbed over the head with a metal pile.

Honestly, he was very lucky to be alive. He was  _blessed_  to have only suffered some concentration issues, and some patchy short-term memory issues. Initially, the doctors had been fairly certain he would have a lot more problems, possibly even stemming into speech and communication.

No: Sherlock was just as mouthy as ever.

The difference was that he didn’t always know what he was being mouthy  _about_. His darting mind found evidence, found ideas, found places to hide and places to examine and he was constantly moving and developing, and couldn’t work out how to join the dots because  _everything_ was interesting now. An important facet of a crime scene would become irrelevant as Sherlock found out everything of everybody’s lives, pasts, the things he once would have filtered out as irrelevant. Everything was relevant, and Sherlock couldn’t hold it all in his head.

“Sherlock?”

John’s voice. A perpetual anchor. Something to hold onto, however briefly, when all else seems to be sliding; Sherlock’s mind slid back, and the scene began to make sense again, a tangible logical progression which he relayed quickly before the thoughts vanished once again.

“Sherlock. You’re fine.”

It was a manageable loss. This, this could be dealt with, because it had to be dealt with, and he would and he could and this was alright, this was alright. “Thank you,” Sherlock returned, breathing out slowly, eyes fixing back on Lestrade. “That ought to near enough cover matters, yes?”

“Well… yeah,” Lestrade trailed off, running a hand through cropped hair. “Cheers. I need to make some phone calls.”

Sherlock’s attention had already darted off elsewhere, and John was left to thank Lestrade himself; honestly, it was barely a change from the norm. Sherlock’s attention had been a little sketchy at the best of times.

John moved to his side, prodded his arm. “We have to go,” he reminded Sherlock.

Sherlock was, oddly, smiling.

“Thank you, John,” he said frankly, with more directness that John had seen from him in a long while.

John smirked back. “You’re welcome.”


	66. Chapter 66

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I stood up to a bully today and I got called ugly for it. So if I could have a teenlock Sherlock getting abused by his boyfriend Viktor but John comes to the rescue that would make my day!!! Much love ladies – aravenclawsomeshadownhunterin221B

Sherlock didn’t see it coming; the comments were standard –  _fucking geek, can’t you just be fucking normal?_  – but being slammed into a wall was fairly new. Victor tended to save that for when they were alone, but proving a point and all that, so Sherlock winced and tried to remain very carefully silent given that with all the good will in the world, one against six was never going to end well.

“If you are going to be transparently moronic, I will naturally correct you before you ignorance infects all around you,” Sherlock informed them sardonically, without really realising he was speaking.

_Such a bad idea_ , the intelligent part of Sherlock’s mind informed him wearily.  _I don’t know why I bother giving advice…_

Sherlock managed to avoid the punch that tried for his ribs, but Victor’s slap made his head ring a little, and he lost a little of his coordination. “Apologise, you arrogant fuck.”

“Arrogance and intelligence are automatically synonymous in your world, aren’t they?” Sherlock noted, voice slurring a little, tension making him shake very slightly. He hated situations like this, always hated them, ever since he was a child and realised nobody would ever understand that he couldn’t abide the rampant stupidity that so many seemed to indulge in, that he would be alone, like Mycroft always was, for the rest of his goddamn life.

Then there was Victor, who put up with him. Who held him, kissed him, tried to teach him to be better. Loved him, in whatever curious way Sherlock deserved, and when Sherlock’s temper snapped there were moments like this which Sherlock knew were designed to make him sociable. To make him like everybody else.

In moments like this, Sherlock hated people.

“Get away from him!”

The voice was unfamiliar. Sherlock wasn’t exactly concentrating on voices; he was more primarily concerned with people and blows, where they were liable to be coming from, and seeing none forthcoming was actually just confusing.

When a figure loomed inches from Sherlock’s face, he took the instinctive step, and lashed out. “ _Fuck_ ,” the voice exclaimed.

Definitely not Victor, nor indeed one of those who carried the curious epithet of a ‘friend’; no, this was a boy Sherlock had only ever seen in passing. Played football, extremely intelligent compared to many of the morons ambling about but not even near a Holmesian level, blond, neat, military family on the mother’s side, currently in cadets, familial problems pertaining to alcohol – father, sibling – but not hostile.

Belatedly, Sherlock apologised for punching the non-hostile in the jaw.

“I would’ve done the same if that lot had been threatening me a second ago,” the boy nodded, rubbing his jaw, wary but not angry. How novel. “You alright? Sherlock, isn’t it?”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “How do you know my name?”

“Everybody knows the Holmes lot, your brother was a legend when my sister was here,” the boy snorted. “I’m John. John Watson.”

Sherlock nodded, standing, pointedly refusing help. “Thank you,” he said after a moment.

John shrugged. “Don’t mention it. Also… it’s not my business, but those guys… they’re not great. Look after yourself, yeah?”

“Yes,” Sherlock returned, a little crisply. Life lessons from another teenager were not high on his list of priorities.

John smiled, and headed off.

Sherlock couldn’t help but watch him as he left, wondering why the boy’s smile was lingering in his head quite so much.


	67. Chapter 67

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful writers! I saw you guys write Sherlock too, so I kind of had an idea. Mycroft receives a call at the middle of the night that Sherlock has been arrested. (Maybe mid-teen sherlock) and Myc is far from surprised. He goes to get him and the at home they have a brother-brother talk. Thank you for your incredible work! – anon

Sherlock was such an obvious addict it was practically insulting. Apparently, he had decided that given Mycroft could see straight through him regardless of how hard he tried, he simply would not try.

An emaciated and Sherlock with black-rimmed eyes thus stared sulkily up at him, hissing faintly under his breath.

Mycroft had absolutely no patience for him. Sherlock thus sulked, and was ignored throughout the car journey home, and taken by the upper arm and dispatched in the kitchen. “Detoxing begins tonight,” Mycroft informed him, without mercy. “You will eat now, given that I doubt you’ll be in the mood fairly soon. You are dying, and I will not stand and watch it.”

Sherlock still refused to respond much. He didn’t touch the sandwich Mycroft placed in front of him.

Silence.

“Sherlock, do you want to die?”  
“Do you give a fuck?”

The question lasered out, lingered somewhere in the air, heavy and repugnant. “Why would you ever think to ask that question?” Mycroft returned carefully, a handful of awful moments later. “Have I given you a reason to consider me that callous?”

“You’ve given me no reason to think conversely,” Sherlock returned, with devastating simplicity.

He didn’t expand. Mycroft waited.

Eventually: “You’re never fucking here.”

Mycroft let out a slight sigh; finally, things made a little more sense. This was retrievable.

“No,” Sherlock interjected, before Mycroft could say a word. “Don’t you fucking dare, Mycroft, don’t you  _dare_  make this into some simple and easy little problem like all your political dramas or such bollocks, this is not like that. This is me telling you why you didn’t notice, and why it’s not unreasonable to assume you don’t give a fuck when you are either absent, or too busy to notice.”

Frankly, Mycroft was accustomed to people being less  _personal_  with their outrageous insults; Sherlock was frustrating him, angering him. “In lieu of our actual parents, I have been required to do what I can with a  _child_  who is incapable of behaving even close to his age.”

“I’ve been acting several times my fucking age since I was six, forgive me for the regression,” Sherlock snapped lividly. “I’m fucking  _fed up_. I like not having to think about the shit that happens around here, yes, I’m  _that_  fucking text book so you’ll just haul me into some form of therapy and lament to your work friends about your ‘poor baby brother’ who finally lost it, and when I finally chuck myself in front of a train you can turn up in black and pretend you give a flying fuck and you’re not quietly relieved you don’t have to think about me any more…”

Sherlock stumbled back, in honest shock, as Mycroft delivered a stinging slap.

They stared at one another. An impasse.

“I love you,” Mycroft stated, so bluntly it was frankly aggressive. “Whether or not you believe it. I have done all I can for you, for  _both of us_ , because I have a life too. I have to have a life. Bills arrive and are paid, you get to school, I get to work, and I have no options. You do. You are young enough to have options, and I will be absent for as long as is required to make sure you continue to have those options. Waste them, and you waste years upon years of my life, and of yours, and you achieve sod all in the way of revenge. Take your vengeance elsewhere, if you like. I’m done with your histrionics.”

Sherlock was still staring, as Mycroft exited without a look back, his words lingering like nothing Sherlock had words to describe.


	68. Chapter 68

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! I absolutely love all of your stories! I love the scene in the empty hearse when Sherlock and Mycroft do deductions together. Maybe they star making deductions about each other just to bother like little kids. ( bonus points if you make johnlock and mystrade) thank you!!! you guys rock :) – anon

“You finally have admitted your sentiments for John,” Mycroft said drily, smirking at his younger brother.

Sherlock’s face fell in an instant. “You…” Sherlock managed, trailing off. “Well. You are in the doghouse with Lestrade, are you not?”

“Try again,” Mycroft drawled, smirking at Sherlock’s expression; his brother half-growled, eyes narrowing as he looked over every inch of Mycroft’s form.

Abruptly, Sherlock realised: “ _He_  is in trouble. So much so that you refused to share the bed, obstreperously moved to the sofa to avoid him, and have yet to make up your differences. Tut tut, Mycroft, and after all your lengthy diatribes about the Importance of Communication with your Goldfish…”

“… do _not_  call Gregory a goldfish…”

Sherlock grinned manically. “Your words not mine, dear brother,” he returned stingingly, Mycroft on the verge of palpable anger. “You selected a  _goldfish_ , and should probably be less  _concerned_  at being called out on it. What did you and Lestrade argue about? Perhaps your work schedule, as you have barely been home in the past fortnight, and – ah, I am assuming there is a missed birthday, anniversary…”

“Gregory’s wedding anniversary,” Mycroft replied curtly.

Sherlock was rendered entirely silent for a moment. “But you’re not…”

Mycroft rolled his eyes elaborately. “Naturally not, Sherlock, do try to keep up – he required support, given the non-existent relationship between himself and his ex-wife, and I quite entirely forgot that he would need such assistance.”

“… which meant when he informed you of your thoughtlessness, your work ethic was cited…”

“… Sherlock, enough…”

“… and you got angry, and slept on the sofa,” Sherlock completed, with a satisfied nod. “Well then. Admirable balance, Mycroft, how  _kind_  of you – Lestrade is  _sentimental_ , and entirely forgot.”

Mycroft was beginning to look just a little bit pale. “Sherlock, kindly leave it,” he asked, voice a touch strained. “I am attempting to handle my first relationship in an extremely long while, missteps are understandable.”

“You started it.”

“ _All the same_ ,” Mycroft emphasised, “I would ask that you stop, now. You are, of course, correct. I wish you more joy with your own burgeoning relationship, but I would theorise that such problems will present themselves to you too, in due course.”

There was a strain in Mycroft’s posture that was only beginning to present itself, only just becoming noticeable. “Mycroft,” Sherlock asked, a little more carefully. “Are you alright?”

Mycroft remained perfectly impassive, as unreadable as he was able to be. “Not at present, but I shall be,” he replied simply. “Thank you for your care, Sherlock. Now, to business: I have a proposition for you…”


	69. Chapter 69

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So I recently got into the Sherlock fandom and I was wondering if you could do me a little fanfic? Mrs Hudson gets injured quite badly by some men that want to get Sherlock. Sherlock and John are sat by her hospital bed and they’re talking about how much they care about mrs hudson, then each other. They thought she was unconscious but it turns out she isn’t, and she says some witty comment to let them know she’s awake xD Thankyou so so so so so much! X – anon

John arrived after Sherlock; by the time he got in, Sherlock was in position by Mrs Hudson’s bedside, fingers steepled beneath his chin, staring steadily forward, mostly blank. “She is stable, but all the same, this is entirely unacceptable,” he told John, without looking up. “We cannot allow this to occur a second time. Mrs Hudson is too valuable to be wasted at the hands of thugs.”

Sherlock still refused to look up, the lines of tension visible across his frame. “I fear we are responsible,” he told John, voice slightly choked, only the very slightest suggestion of emotion.

“Yes,” John echoed, sitting heavily in the chair by Sherlock’s side. “I can’t… shit, Sherlock, she could have died. She could have  _bloody_ …” he trailed off again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Not to mention  _you_ , you bloody idiot, nearly lost you as well.”

As ever, the detective seemed calmly oblivious to his own mortality. “I’m perfectly fine,” he replied dismissively. “As are you, it would appear – which is certainly another addition to the feeling we have rather let down a woman who deserves considerably better than this.”

John remained rather silent, for a moment. “You see now why I wanted her out of the country,” he pointed out, not accusatory. “We can’t lose her… apart from anything else, nobody else would house us, you’re a bloody nightmare…”

“… you’re not much better…”

“Oh, come on, you blew up the microwave and we’ve had four separate bomb scares,” John snapped at him, tangibly tense.

Sherlock glanced over to John. “You are hardly a poster child for functional behaviour either,” he commented, a little unpleasantly.

John’s expression was equally sharp. “I don’t have to stay, you know.”  
“So don’t.”

“Yes, but I’d  _like_  to,” John said honestly, and he abruptly went a touch pink.

Both of them fell intriguingly silent.

Sherlock eventually managed to find words: “I’d like you to, as well.”

Further silence.

“Oh, just kiss him, you idiot,” a voice said from the bed.

John and Sherlock’s heads turned in unison. Mrs Hudson was still lying back on the bed, eyes half-shut, but smirking delightedly. “You’re awake,” John exclaimed.

“You may forever be counted upon to state the obvious,” Sherlock muttered drily. “Now: what on earth was it you just sai-”

Sherlock was cut off by John all but pouncing on him, with a deep and immensely passionate kiss; the younger man made a startled sound, but didn’t move away. Instead, he deepened the kiss considerably, his body twining in with John’s.

“Ahem.”

They broke apart, looking again to Mrs Hudson with naked shock. “Sorry,” John muttered.

“About time,” she said contently, and seemed – to the disbelief of both men – to fall asleep again almost immediately.


	70. Chapter 70

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> angsty/hurt-comfort Sherlock fic please? :) – anon

“He will be fine,” Mycroft assured his younger sibling as Sherlock leaned back, away from the screen. “This truly is the safest thing for him. For all of them.”

“I don’t know if I can shoot him,” Sherlock admitted, eyeing Magnusson’s files. “I just… “

Mycroft looked to him, confused. “You have admitted to me your dislike for him, I can promise you immunity…”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “That, brother mine, is not the point,” he returned, a little edgily. “It is not a case of my immunity, or necessary punishment. It is merely the hypocrisy; I am a man who works to eliminate those who commit such acts, I am unlikely to be re-employed if I am involved in a murder.”

“That is not the entirety of your problem, however.”

Sherlock’s gaze darted angrily to Mycroft. “I have no idea what you mean,” he snapped. “No idea.”

A raised eyebrow, a direct parry of Sherlock’s. “You are unhappy to kill. It upsets you, on some level. Am I correct?”

For a moment, Sherlock was utterly silent. “It’s nothing,” he said simply. “Absolutely nothing. It is not the act of killing which…”

“You are lying.”

Sherlock stood abruptly, dislodging his chair, pushing the laptop from him with naked aggression. “It is not my morality at stake, but my work,” he snapped. “Do not label me with unwarranted sentiment, it suits neither of us. Goodbye, Mycroft.”

With that, he stormed out.

-

The helicopter circled overhead, and John was opposite him, being humiliated.

His options were very limited indeed. He stood to lose everything, absolutely everything, and he could not bear the thought.

“Merry Christmas.”

A gunshot, and Magnussen folded.

Mycroft felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

“Oh, Sherlock,” he murmured, with quiet horror.

His brother was not made for murder. He was not the type to see the light die from another’s eyes, and to have the weight of death on his hands. Even for the sake of another, Sherlock should never have been required to kill.

Mycroft had believed, truly believed, that Sherlock would not compromise himself in that manner.

“What have you done?” Mycroft murmured, as the masses descended, and Sherlock was carried away.


	71. Chapter 71

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a constant joke between my boyfriend and I that he was the Watson to my Holmes. I got dumped by him yesterday because Watson couldn’t deal with Holmes anymore, and I was wondering if you could please write a fic where John leaves Sherlock, but eventually comes back? – anon

Sherlock closed his eyes, and allowed his mind to wander as best it was able; the mind palace was not safe for a little while, far too plagued with memories of a smile and eyes and everything John had been. The staircases of those places they had been together, his life tailored carefully around the contours of one who had never abused his trust or made him less than he could be.

John had loved him quite as he was, or so Sherlock had believed. Truly, honestly believed.

He missed John more than he could say.

Of course, he had moved out. Of course, he had taken everything and left Sherlock alone, as he should be. As he had always professed he should be.

With John, he had never been alone, and had – for a while – believed it were better that he had somebody there. Sherlock had opened himself to the suggestion of another, and for a long while it had been more than sufficient.

John had left, and Sherlock had recalled why he needed to be alone.

It had been over a week, and Sherlock had yet to leave the flat. Cases were left abandoned, Lestrade calling pointlessly on a mobile that had long-since lost all charge and was now settled in the corner of the room with the screen cracked, from where Sherlock had thrown it after a bout of livid and raw anger.

The loneliness was more than Sherlock had believed possible.

Thus, when footsteps could be heard on the stairs – familiar gait, the suggestion of a half-forgotten limp – Sherlock felt his body respond in a manner so breathtakingly severe it rendered him unable to breathe.

A short knock. Two knocks, hesitant in speed although not in force, unmistakeable.

“Enter,” Sherlock drawled, sitting up, expression perfectly placed before John Watson walked into their once-flat.

Both stared at one another for a protracted moment.

John looked like hell, which was fairly gratifying. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, glancing up and down John. “You, as I understood, had left indefinitely,” he said drily. “What brings you here?”

John watched, stared. “I’m sorry,” he said, bitten-off and curt. “I… Sherlock, I am sorry. I am more than sorry. I made a mistake, an huge mistake. I should never have gone. I’m sorry.”

Sherlock stared at him, heart hammering in his throat. This was his mistake, had always been his mistake; he was not accustomed to this form of emotional rawness, anger, and this was  _sentiment_. Mycroft had warned him, and this was the consequence.

“Why?” he asked, quiet, more fragile than he wanted to be.

John let out a short sigh, closed his eyes.

“Sit down,” Sherlock said irritably, gesturing sharply at the armchair.

It was almost normal.

John walked over, and sat, and Sherlock listened with his concentration spinning away from him and everything focusing into the single focal point of John’s voice, and the warmth of intimacy he could half-remember.


	72. Chapter 72

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Do you think you could do a fic based where Moriarty is the youngest Holmes brother and, though he isn’t welcome, he shows up to a family gathering? Thanks! – anon

The final knock was entirely unexpected.

Mycroft was peeling potatoes, with an expression of sheer contempt for the peeler, peelings, and indeed the saucepan of water into which he was throwing them, and his head – like Sherlock’s – immediately snapped towards the door.

Mummy froze.

Daddy seemed merrily oblivious, but that was quite alright, he was often rather oblivious of such things. Certainly, he would never have known that the only person in the world who knocked like that was his youngest son.

“No.  _No_ ,” Mummy mumbled, angry and edged and             quiet and desperate.

Nobody had seen James since the Reichenbach incident. James – or Jim, as he called him predominantly these days – was the now estranged extension of their family. He had left home at the age of fourteen, refused point blank to come back, and was now a rampant psychopath without apology or hesitation.

Sherlock was pale.

Daddy, abruptly, noticed that all had gone quiet. “Ah,” he murmured. “Violet?”

“It’s James,” she replied simply, quietly, standing tall while Mycroft abandoned the potatoes. Daddy’s jaw tightened, and it was naturally him who went to the door, pulling it open to invite their youngest son into the house.

Moriarty sauntered in as though he had never left. “Well, hell _o_ , mummy and daddy dearest, and of _course_  my delightful siblings. Didn’t think to invite the spare?”

“James, if there is nothing you have to say beyond insults, kindly leave.”

It was curious, how Mycroft and Sherlock both fell quiet. Their parents would always take precedence, and they could deal with Moriarty better than either of them; they tried all they could, but it was never enough, as Sherlock had more than amply illustrated.

After all, Moriarty had left because there was a single person in the world who quite entirely outsmarted him: his father.

Violet was brilliant. Bright and alive and ferociously intelligent, but she was her elder boys incarnate: methodical and precise and reckless but, ultimately, predictable to anybody who understood her mind in the slightest.

It was Daddy’s mind that was translated itself into their youngest son. Erratic and playful and daring and passionate, but with Violet’s intelligence; everybody could understand his intelligence, but  _not_  the art of the random. Sherlock was closer, yes, but James was his father’s son, and he  _hated it_.

Now, he stood with a terrifying grin. “Don’t you miss me? Don’t you  _miss_  your baby boy?”

“Naturally.”

Daddy was extraordinary, his voice low and terrifying despite his age, despite his usual lightness. Moriarty’s dark eyes mirrored in daddy’s, and all were still while two forces of nature watched one another and waited, the storm building on the horizon while Sherlock vied for attention and Mycroft quietly tried to keep some form of peace along with his mother.

And  _there_  was an entire childhood in a nutshell.


	73. Chapter 73

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love reading what both of you write. Could you write a story where Mycroft has sent a retrained John undercover to a war zone, so John can take down Moriaty’s web. Both men don’t know Sherlock is alive. bamfJohn. Hopefully it can be turned into Johnlock. It’s one my fav. pairings. Thank you – anon

"I have your location," John nodded, as the voice in his ear guiding him through. Breathing in, he could feel the sweat building up in his jumpsuit, the parachute was heavy on his back as he stood, looking out onto the clouds.

It was weird, being so heavily connected to Mycroft. After Sherlock’s death, John had assumed he wouldn’t see Mycroft near-enough ever again, and it was to his tremendous surprise when the man had offered him a job.

It had mostly been rather dull trailing through papers at first. Making links, putting things together - also informing a team of every encounter with Moriarty. But this was where it was all leading to. He was a soldier. This is what he was trained for.

The air was cold, nothing like Afghanistan had been; it was less comfortable, but manageable all the same, and he had a job to do.

"Here we go," he muttered, and headed towards his set location, gun holstered comfortably.

He had no words to express his shock at the feel of cold steel on the back of his neck.

Slowly, so as not to arouse a shot, John raised his arms above his head. A sharp jab got him walking forward, stepping over the harsh terrain and towards the cover of some shrubbery.

"Name, and who you’re working for," a thickly accented voice asked.

John let out a slow breath. This was definitely not the most auspicious start to his undercover mission. “My name is John, and I’m British, and I’m working with an independent outfit.”

The gun fell. Always a comfort.

"John."

The voice was unmistakable. Impossibly,  _terrifyingly_  familiar. For a moment John couldn’t breathe. Turning around he had to look, had to know. The man behind him was taller, but haggard. His hair was long and tied back in a grotty ponytail.

John stared.

"Sherlock?"

The man raised an eyebrow, and - the accent gone - said simply: “It is encouraging to know that, even undercover, I am still recognisable.”

John punched him.

Sherlock staggered backwards, clutching his face. John couldn’t help it, the next was a kick to the stomach. Adrenaline was pumping through him.

"Three years!" John barked, grasping Sherlock’s jacket lapels. "I mourned you. Three  _bloody_  years. And now I have spent several months hunting down  _your_  arch-nemesis, being ordered around by  _your_ brother and I have just jumped out of a bloody  _plane_ …”

"Not been getting bored then?" Sherlock smirked, lip bloody. "Good to know you’ve been kept busy."

"You smell disgusting."

"You’re not at your best either."

John punched him again.

"You have a fuck of a lot of explaining to do," John hissed, and sat on the side of a nearby wall. "Start talking."


	74. Chapter 74

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have one, it’s not much but do with it what you will: Richard Brook is real. In fact he’s Jim Moriarty’s beloved twin. Not incest but Richard being the one person that Jim truly cares about. – bornscreaming

Richard was not supposed to in the public sight line, not ever. Richard stayed safe and separate, and nothing would ever hurt him. Jim could keep him safe, and he would, and they trusted one another implicitly.

Which was always a mission, when Richard was wearing the face of the most wanted man in the country.

“You know, I had a life once,” Richard teased, sat on the sofa in front of junk TV, looking terminally bored. “I had a job, I worked with kids, my job was fantastic… and you, Jim, you’ve cocked everything up  _again_. I don’t know whether to be impressed or pissed off.”

Jim chucked himself into the sofa, bouncing contentedly before settling and grinned madly. “Yeah, but I also got you the  _best job in acting_ ,” he parried, poking his brother in the arm, his own face staring back with mild amusement. “You had to fool Sherlock Holmes!”

“Which I did,” Richard conceded.

There had been very few things more fun than being Richard Brook not being Moriarty being threatened by Sherlock Holmes who was tangibly unnerved by what was going on around him; Richard hadn’t known whether to be shocked or delighted by the transparent terror on the man’s face as he started to doubt his own mind, if only for a second.

“I brought cake!” Jim remembered suddenly, grabbing for the carrier bag; he had been going out intermittently in various impressive disguises to grab supplies, keeping carefully out of the scope of Big Brother’s cameras and eventually looping back home.

Richard couldn’t leave. He didn’t have his brother’s powers of disappearance, of the almost-magic that Jim possessed and kept him going through all problems and all dangers. Richard could merely watch his brother dart from strength to strength with almost aggressive need, and that had to be enough.

Except, it wasn’t.

“Jim…”

Jim had already noticed something was wrong. Some shift in the air, in the environment, and the hairs on his arms stood on end, and Moriarty stood slowly with his dark eyes roaming around the room to find the fault.

“It was all for you,” Jim told his brother simply, and glanced out, smirking widely at ostensibly nothing. Moriarty’s laugh trickled through the ears of microphones, and he called out: “Nice try, gentlemen.”

Richard could only watch, as his brother mutated into something half-unrecognisable, and did what he always had: the masses descended, trying to capture him, and Moriarty was already gone in a puff of smoke and the suggestion of a laugh.


	75. Chapter 75

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> songfic! Don’t Cry Joni + unrequited VicLock + JohnLock + virtual cookies – anon

Victor had been Sherlock’s first love.

For most of his life, Sherlock had truly believed he would never find love, fall in love, be in loved. Being loved in return was far too much to hope for, and so he didn’t think too much about it.

Then, there had been Victor.

Victor had whistled into Sherlock’s life with a saunter and a smile, and he had been two years older and an eternity away from him, and Sherlock had fallen in love wholeheartedly and learnt that he  _could_. Victor was not a goldfish. Victor was not a slow, plebeian idiot whose only interests were sport and aesthetics.

No, he was hardly a Holmesian intellect, but he was sharp and he was funny and he was  _perfect_. Mycroft thought he was an idiot, but then Mycroft thought  _everybody_  was an idiot so it just didn’t matter.

As he said: Sherlock had never expected to be loved back. Holmes boys didn’t get to be loved.

“Victor was…”

Sherlock trailed off. Talking about Victor – even to John – was difficult. Victor was a part of Sherlock’s life that aches like a wound on every thought, in every breath. The sound of the name and the quirk of a smile, the exact shade of brown, and Sherlock could see Victor again for a heartbeat.

John was patient, and John waited. John  _knew_.

“… I loved him.”

To Sherlock’s surprise, John actually smiled slightly. “First love?”

A small, tentative nod.

“Mine was Alice,” John mused, quiet and contemplative, talking mostly because Sherlock needed a voice somewhere to take him out of his head. “She was lovely. Well, she wasn’t, but definitely thought that at the time… anyway. Victor?”

Sherlock shrugged sideways. “He said I’d forget. I never really did. Don’t think I ever will. Victor was everything to me for a while. I was a child and I was naïve. It’s fine. Gone.”

To his credit, John didn’t try to deny it. “Okay,” he nodded, and took a sip of his tea. “Tell me about him.”

Sherlock froze for a few long seconds.

Then quietly, almost tentatively, started to speak.


	76. Chapter 76

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Can you do me a Sherlock prompt because you love me? Sherlock is a wealthy man that everyone knows but no one know his personal life. They know he has a son, Hamish, who goes to a very expensive and good school. But they all assume he’s single. One day when John comes to pick him up all the mums assume he’s the nanny and tell him how much they would love to be Sherlock’s wife. John just goes along with it because he thinks its funny. Thanks! :D – itsrachsimpson

"Over there,  _don’t_  look.”

"What, the dark haired…?"

"No, no the short one - isn’t he the cutest nanny you have ever seen?"

"Oh my god, is he picking up Hamish?"

All three women looked over as Hamish Holmes ran into the man’s arms, and made delighted cooing noises en masse. “He  _is_.”

“He’s  _lovely_ ,” one sighed, looking over him; immediately, she clocked the wedding ring. “Damn. Taken. So he must be Hamish’s nanny…?”

One of them preened a little, ruffled her hair, and started to stalk towards him with worrying confidence. “ _Jane_ , he’s…”

‘Jane’ had no interest in whether he was taken or not. Flirting was not against any rules of this world. She could flirt with the lovely male nanny. “I’m Jane.”

The man looked up. “Hello. I’m John. You’re Jack’s mum, right?”

Jane nodded proudly, glancing over at her son. “And you’re here with Hamish?”

“Yep,” John replied, with a similar look of pride that made Jane – and the other mums – melt. They had all flocked over, looking excitably at the lovely young nanny. “Hello. Nice to meet you all.”

“So you’re Mr Holmes’s nanny, yes?” Jane asked, and didn’t wait for a reply before continuing merrily along. “… he’s lovely, yes,  _beautiful_  man…”

“You’re married, stop it,” another mum grinned, baffing at her playfully while she laughed. “I, on the other hand…”

John was barely suppressing a smirk. “Yep, I can understand the feeling,” he told them lightly. “He is definitely a gorgeous man.”

The mums blinked. “Oh,” Jane asked delicately. “So you must be… gay? If you don’t mind me…”

“Gay and married,” John nodded. “With a child, actually.”

One of the other mums tsked in sympathy. “My brother’s the same, I told him about Mr Holmes actually, just his type…”

“And exactly mine,” John replied with quiet enthusiasm, to the surprise of the surrounding mums; it had to be a very odd dynamic indeed, to be attracted to your employer. Probably not exactly ethical.

Jane was fairly sure she disapproved.

“Mr Holmes, could you  _please_  stop Hamish watching…”

“…  _observing_ …”

“…other children,” Mr Adams asked – he was Hamish’s form teacher – and resolutely ignored Hamish’s interjections.

“Call me John, please,” John replied warmly.

Three voices gasped in almost precise unison

Jane’s smile was a little bit hysterical around the edges, but passable all the same. “So Hamish is…”

“My son,” John completed, with a proud smile. “Pleasure to talk, ladies. Have a good evening.”

With that, he left, Hamish trailing petulantly behind him and pointing out particularly observation-deserving rocks on the pathway.


	77. Chapter 77

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what if one day john was extremely irritated with sherlock and he suddenly can’t help himself and says something along the lines of ‘can you stop being such a freak and just act normal for once?’ and sherlock just stops and looks at john for a while and john feels sick as he watches sherlock put up every barrier that he’d put down since they’d moved in together and sherlock just says ‘you were the only one who never called me that.’ – anon

The ice crept along John’s spine as he watched Sherlock’s expression, and the words were acid and impossible to snatch back; John would have given everything he was for the chance to wrench them away, to stop his mouth from working so independently and say things so lethally stupid.

“You were the only one who never called me that.”

John’s heart broke.

He had never meant to. The words had slid out, and they were so constantly bandied around amongst the police, everybody around Sherlock, that he was freak; he shouldn’t have let it slide into his consciousness, shouldn’t have been so angry.

“Sherlock, I didn’t mean it,” John said quickly, crumpling in slightly. “It just… it slipped out, I was angry…”

Sherlock was gone. John could tell. Everything Sherlock was had just curled into itself and his eyes were utterly cold. The blue had no edge of forgiveness.

“I understand,” he stated sharply. “I understand your opinions on the matter, and we can consider this done with.”

John tried to reach out, and found Sherlock immediately holding up a forbidding hand to stave him away.

“Sherlock…”

An almost-hiss of anger. “I have no interest in anything you have to say on the matter.”

Sherlock immediately strode away, coat out behind him, billowing; he ignored John’s attempts at speech, ignored everything of him. “Sherlock, _please_ ,” he tried once again, following him. “Sherlock…”

A sharp twist, and Sherlock’s gaze was sharp and livid and hate-ridden. “I thought you weren’t like the others, and I was incorrect. Thank you for educating me about the nature of those who are duplicitous. Truly, I should have known otherwise.”

“I’m not,” John said quickly. “Sherlock, you  _know_  I’m not, I’m nothing like them. I care about you. I made a mistake, a stupid mistake, and I…”

Sherlock’s gaze cut him off.

There was nothing that John recognised any more.   _His_  Sherlock was gone.

“I’m so sorry,” he tried again, and there was nothing whatsoever, nothing. “Please. I’m so, so sorry.”

Sherlock didn’t change. Nothing changed.

Sherlock walked away, and John had no choice but to let him.


	78. Chapter 78

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear writers, could I have Sherlock getting trapped in his mind palace with Moriarty during a case, scaring the hell out of Molly and Lestrade, but only John being able to pull him out? Maybe with cute fluffy kisses afterwards? All my love if you do! – owncode

_Be afraid, be very afraid_

“Sherlock, Sherlock, you have to listen to me…”

_One, two, three, four. Now your hands will drip with gore…_

I’m not like you.

_Lock me up to stop being you. I’m you. You you you._

Let me out. Let me out, right now.  _Right now_.

_That tone of voice, tut tut. See? Isn’t it fun to have that force, it’s beautiful, like dancing on coals…_

“Sherlock. Listen. He’s gone, he’s dead.”

 _I’m him_.

“You’re not. You’re the bravest, most brilliant and just people I will ever know. You have to get out of your own head. You’re not him.”

_Ooh, soldier boy isn’t fond. Come on Sherley. Have some fun. Everybody deserves fun once in a while, and ooh, I’m fun to have around. Life and soul, don’t you know…_

John?

“Sherlock. I’m here. Feel my hand?”

No. Wait. Yes.

_Do you?_

“Squeeze it for me. Not too hard, you mad git.”

 _Mad. See? He thinks so too_.

Oh, just piss off.

 _Ah, now you get cross. Good boy_.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe. See?”

You have beautiful eyes.

_So sweet I could vomit. Pathetic, Sherlock. You’re pathetic. Be free, Sherlock Holmes. You’ll come running back, when you want to fly. No drugs needed to fly, you know, you always knew, so come fly with, come fly, let’s fly away…_

“Thank you. You coming back to me?”

I won’t be him.

“No. You won’t.”

_Aww!_

I’m not him.

-

John swung into full focus, and Sherlock took a breath like his first out of water.

“Welcome back,” John smiled; Sherlock immediately noticed Lestrade looking rather stressed, Donovan actively white. “It’s alright. Tea. Two sugars for you.”

“I hate sugar,” Sherlock returned, his heartbeat trying to settle.

John raised an eyebrow. “No arguing. Doctor’s orders.”

Sherlock just didn’t have the energy to argue, and just tried to tune out the singing that continue to hum around his head, insistent and too loud, far too loud.


	79. Chapter 79

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what if Richard Brook was real? he is a mediocre actor affected by schizophrenia, and after yet another refusal in some major production, Jim appears! I’d really love to see him as a cope mechanism (and while Jim knows about Richard, the other way round isn’t true).  
> thank you beauties! hope you like it!! :) – fridatwin

“I’m so sorry sweetheart, but it’s a no,”

Richard swallowed, hand tightening on his desk. “Oh? Did they give a reason?”

“Do they ever? Look, I’ll give you a call if anything else comes up. Talk soon dear.”

“Thanks, yeah soon,” Richard replied, hanging up and throwing his mobile across the room.

_They didn’t want you_

He sank down, knees hitting the floor with bruising force.

_Why would they?_

Jim straightens. “Because you’re a sissy,” he says aloud, and glances down at his clothing. Tsks slightly. “Now what  _are_  you wearing? Can’t be seen in all this get-up. We have  _work_  to do.”

A quick saunter, a suit, a phone call. “Richard’s asleep, want to play?” he says to his favourite sniper. “I’ve got something for you, Sebby…”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll call you whatever the fuck I like,” he says, with a hint of livid fury in his tone. Abruptly, the smile is back. “I’ll text you over the details, right my love?”

“Don’t call me that, either.”

Jim blows a kiss, and hangs up.

A whistling trill, a handful of notes, sustained and dropped off in a cascading octave. His shoes are filthy, need polishing, but Richard will doubtless do so when he re-emerges.

Jim likes the setup. Jim likes remaining dormant, and sneaking in through the back door when Richard Brook – failed actor and depressive and boring – slides away. Richard doesn’t realise that Jim has always been there. Richard just knows that time is not linear for him, that he loses aeons and has no clue where they’ve gone, that he didn’t prepare for the audition he had because he doesn’t remember  _being_.

(In that time, Jim calmly commandeered an Israeli terrorist cell for his own ends. It all went rather well.)

It is only Jim’s fault a little bit. Mostly he’s good about everything, lets Richard get on with matters and doesn’t play devil in the back of his consciousness. It is to Jim’s advantage to ensure that Richard gets disappointed; when he’s disappointed, Jim enters more easily, and he has too much to be getting on with to just  _wait_.

Jim finds it hilarious that Richard hasn’t figured it out yet.

Their neighbour pokes her head out of the door, and waves chirpily at Jim. Jim grins back, waves, with a touch of something so frightening the woman withdraws again as abruptly as she appeared.

 _Excellent_ , Jim considers, and lightly steps out into the afternoon air, Richard’s body warm and thrumming with possibility.


	80. Chapter 80

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know if you take Sherlock prompts, but: Sherlock does not know how to accept compliments, seeing as how whenever someone says something that could be interpreted as kind, they are being sarcastic. So when John compliments him, he always assumes that the man is being sarcastic. He gets tired of it one day and yells at John wondering why he insists on delivering double sided comments. – anon

“That was…”

“Perfectly within usual parameters, so kindly do  _not_  make any further comment,” Sherlock drawled, collapsing onto the sofa with the expectation of somebody making him tea. “I do not require your asides, in this situation.”

John blinked. “You were extraordinary.”

Sherlock’s eyes snapped to John’s. “That’s quite enough,” he hissed. “I cannot continue to be insulted like this, John, I appreciate that these events are  _difficult_  to witness because, perhaps, I am far more intelligent than you give me credit for.”

The kettle started to boil. Sherlock registered that he hadn’t noticed it turn on.

John looked truly bemused, to an extent that Sherlock couldn’t quite remember seeing before. “Sherlock, I mean it.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Fine, we are to continue in this vein then,” he replied, his acid stripped into something just a little bit fragile. “Then enjoy, but kindly deliver  _actual_  insults rather than the ridiculously  _British_  backhanded manner you seem intent on. I would far prefer to be called a freak than given one of your supposed insults.”

“I’m not insulting you!”

Sherlock started searching for his cigarettes, falling utterly silent. If John was going to remain stubborn, then he would do the same, and the first port of call was some of his  _bloody_  cigarettes before he began to implode.

John watched, still looking bemused, and Sherlock felt yet more anger fizzle under his skin. “Where are my cigarettes?”

“You’ve quit,” John returned shortly. “Sherlock, what do you mean about me insulting you?”

“’You’re brilliant’, ‘fantastic’, ‘extraordinary’,” Sherlock mimicked, with a tone of disdain. “Although it may seem novel to you, I am very much accustomed to the pathological sarcasm of most idiots. If I have merited insult, then please do deliver it directly, it is irritating otherwise.”

Sherlock let out a  _ha_  of delight, before abruptly throwing the packet over his shoulder. Entirely empty. John had taken them all. “… but I’m not.”

“Not what?”

John looked at Sherlock with a strange mixture of amusement, confusion and the tiniest dash of pity that made Sherlock feel vaguely homicidal. “Sarcastic. I’m not sarcastic with complements, it sort of defeats the purpose.”  
Sherlock stared at him.

John stared straight back.

“But you…” Sherlock trailed off, his frenetic searching put on pause. “Impossible.”

“Why?” John asked curiously. “Is it  _so_  unlikely that I’d actually compliment you?”

Sherlock’s silence answered the question, and John let out a slight sigh. The man looked genuinely taken aback, and it truly  _hadn’t_  occurred to him. Left to backhanded compliments for his entire life, now unable to recognise a true one.

“If I compliment you, I mean it. You know I’m blunt with insults, Sherlock, I call you a prat daily and you are one, so… yeah,” John trailed off.

Sherlock still seemed lost in stasis. John went to deal with the tea.

“… thank you,” John heard, almost inaudibly.

John smiled slightly to himself, and – as Sherlock had hoped for – left the subject well enough along, with the knowledge that Sherlock might just trust him the next time he did something spectacular.


	81. Chapter 81

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard had everyone convinced that he’s the good twin and Jim is the psychotic one. But what if that’s not true? What if Richard is just as bad? – anon

Pulling off a convincing heist requires a number of willing participants, and all of them need to know precisely how every muscle twitches in each affected party. It is a complex and beautiful dance, a success, and true genius is required.

It was actually Richard’s idea.

“… dress us up, swapsies, start again,” Richard completed, with a delightedly young bounce. “Like it?”

Jim looked through the sheaves of paper Richard had prepared, assessing everything in perfect detail: of course, he had done beautifully, as Jim had expected, every eventuality planned for.

“You can’t be involved.”

There was only one difference between the Moriarty boys, and that was the ability to blend in. Jim could. Jim kept his insanity lurking like a snake, ready to strike, poised and always there, but could be forgotten for the sake of a larger endgame.

Richard Moriarty had managed for a number of years, before his brain tilted right over the edge, and landed him in hospital with a failed suicide and two murders under his belt. He had been a TV presenter and actor before that.

Such a shame.

Now, he planned murders for his elder brother.

The whole idea of swapping places to save ‘Moriarty’ – the umbrella term, the name under which all the criminal dealings went – was a long one. Richard created the blueprints for it when they were in their twenties, and it became evident that Richard was going to be in the care of people in white coats for an extremely long time.

It was finally going to be put to good use.

Richard himself would not be involved, theoretically speaking. Richard Brooks had never technically existed; they wiped the records together, the brothers side-by-side as they made it so Jim had always been an only child. Richard Brooks would pop in and out of hospital for a number of years under a number of names. Stage names. Real names. Sort-of real names.

In any case, when it came to it, Richard was perfectly able to trail around after Kitty Riley and disgorge large quantities of information that Jim passed along. They lived together. It was nicely domestic.

(It was also the longest stint out of hospital for Richard in a very long while).

All the participants, all of the brilliance.

It was Jim who planned the last, who  _saw_  the last. The ending. The perfect ending that eliminated all his problems: the detective who wouldn’t leave him alone, the identity that was starting to chase a little too close to his heels, and the psychotic brother who would never stop popping up, who was in danger and would be very badly hurt if matters continued.

Richard is manipulated onto the rooftop of St Barts, and imitates Jim.

Sherlock walks around him, cooing words, and Richard closes his eyes and understands precisely what Jim has done.

“Goodbye, brother,” Jim murmurs to air.

Richard knows he has to die. For this plan to work, Jim needed the participants.

He needed a body. An identical body. The body – of course – of Richard Brook.

It will take a few keystrokes to release Richard Brook’s psychiatric records to the world. Doctors will testify to his identity. Sherlock will be dead, unable to argue the point.

Jim saunters off stage left.

“… well good luck with that,” Richard ends, and the gunshot is deafeningly loud.

Jim did not kill Richard Brook.

Jim did not kill his sibling.

But a heist of this nature needs true genius. Just the one. No loose ends, no turning back. The game must be won, and a life must be lost, and Jim has made certain that his mad and brilliant and liability of a younger brother will no longer be a problem.

Jim waits to make sure Sherlock jumps. He does.

A new game begins.


	82. Chapter 82

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sherlock hates this channel called crime&investigation (ci) yet he still watches it. – anon

“This is why I hate television,” Sherlock was ranting. “Waste of time and energy, it’s always crap, and this  _sodding_  channel run by a collection of absolute  _morons_  and none of them know what they’re talking about, no common sense, no observational capacity, these are  _basic_  things even Scotland Yard are capable of, and this…”

John had given up trying to point out that Sherlock didn’t actually  _have_  to watch Crime and Investigation. It didn’t really stop him. Much like John’s quiet obsession with Jeremy Kyle – awful people and awful presenter – Sherlock was utterly addicted to something he wanted very badly to hate on principal (and did hate, really) but couldn’t quite stop.

And so. The ranting.

John made some tea. Sherlock didn’t seem to notice or care until the ad break.

“No new cases, then?” John asked, typing away at his laptop; Harry wanted to meet for drinks to commemorate the anniversary ending of her marriage, which struck John as not-ideal on so many levels that he honestly couldn’t work out how to phrase a police decline.

Sherlock huffed. “Nothing. The criminal world festers in its inadequacies. All silent. Waiting for the next stage, for something  _new_ …”

John tuned out. Sherlock had a habit of monologuing, when bored. Minutes, hours could pass while he rambled about the stupidity of other or the raging boredom. The more bored he was, the more he watched CI. The more he watched CI, the angrier he got. The rants became terrifyingly impassioned, which was the point at which John left the building for the sake of his sanity.

“Drinking or divorce?”

The sentence cut through the drone of Sherlock’s general ramblings. John sighed. “How did you know?”

“Typing speed and expression. Hesitancy, rephrasing, backspace key somewhat overused. The message was exasperating – a sigh, very obvious – but practised; you let out the same sound when dealing with myself or your sibling, and given that I am here and not being exasperating, it would seem to be your sister. Not to mention the slight slump in your shoulders that accompanies most of your dealings with her; she’s presumably drinking again. You also have her profile visible on screen.”

The last sentence elicited a snort; there was always something, even in the most clever deductions, that were painfully obvious. Things John somehow missed but really should have seen, that most people would have seen if they actually gave it an ounce of thought.

“Both.”

“I’m almost impressed,” Sherlock muttered drily. “I wouldn’t pander to her in any way. Not worth it. Just have a drink your… ‘boys’ … and you’ll have a far better evening.”

John pressed send on the best-calculated mini-Facebook-essay he had ever composed. Harry would (hopefully) not take it too badly.

“You will have the phone call within twelve hours,” Sherlock smirked, bursting any hope John may have had of a quiet evening, a heartbeat before the ranting resumed: “…and look at the grease on his wrist, obviously fixing…”

At least, John considered, it was never a dull moment.


	83. Chapter 83

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sherlock is raped and has a seriously hard time understanding what happen to him. He becomes destructive and depressed not understanding that he had no control over the rape and that their was no other motive for the rape. John and co. witness Sherlock’ decent to maddness and realize that Sherlock may be human after all. – anon

“Yes, but it was a  _pointless_  action. It serves no true purpose. An assault on the body of any nature has an end goal, extorting information or threat, this was neither – a demonstration of what? Power? It is merely transport, it is hardly indicative of one person’s power over another barring the situational aspects…”

Sherlock had been monologing for a long while, a repetitive collection of thoughts and beliefs as he tried to rationalise something that resisted any attempt to be understood.

John could only watch, feeling rather useless while Sherlock ranted and lividly spewed the same old things: it was merely transport, it did not affect him as it might others, he was  _fine_  and John should leave him alone.

Mercifully, he had not been injured too extensively. John didn’t really want to consider how much worse things would have been if Sherlock was bed-bound as well as mentally all over the place.

“Sherlock, you couldn’t have changed anything.”

Sherlock stared at him with naked disdain. “Any situation is changeable, if one responds in such a way as to deflect it,” he snapped. “If I had established a  _motive_ , I would have fought back appropriately. As it stands, I didn’t anticipate the rape, and failed utterly – that is my responsibility and the fault lies with me. I’m not a common idiot who will simply accept that the fault is only with the antagonist; it is a complex situation that requires the antagonist’s victim to be  _weak_ , and…”

“… it isn’t  _weakness_ , Sherlock,” John repeated, for what felt like the millionth time. “You couldn’t have known he would…”

“Stop talking, you’re wasting oxygen.”

“You’ve been talking bollocks for the last hour, oxygen has already taken a battering,” John retorted. There was no point being reticent or pitying around Sherlock; John had no qualms about being blunt. “You’re angry, I get it, but this isn’t helping. I’m not going to tell you how you should get through this, you’ll only ignore me, but this is  _not_  how to cope with being raped.”

“I don’t need to  _cope_ ,” Sherlock hissed. “There is nothing to cope with. I am simply trying to establish cause and effect, acknowledging the faults and weaknesses in myself I must address.”

John was sincerely contemplating bashing his head repeatedly against a brick wall. Certainly, he thought it was likely to be more use than talking to the man. And yet: “Sherlock. I don’t have any more ways of expressing what a  _bloody idiot_  you’re being.”

“Isn’t there some rule against insulting  _victims_ ,” Sherlock hissed, with a dash of malevolence. “Or are you making an exception,  _doctor_  Watson?”

John let out a slow breath. “Okay. I get it, you’re not going to budge on this one but Sherlock, at least have a think about it. You wouldn’t berate any other rape victim like this, I’ve seen you. You’re not any better or worse than them.”

“I…”

“No, I’m not arguing any more,” John interjected, before Sherlock could continue being belligerent. “Just think about it, for everybody’s sake, because you’re being a right pain in the arse.”

John inwardly winced at the choice of words, but Sherlock mercifully didn’t seem to notice, or indeed care if he did.

Sherlock was silent for a very long time. John eventually stood, stretching slightly, heading to the kitchen to put the kettle on. “Milk, three sugars,” Sherlock told him, without moving.

 _Cheeky bugger_ , John thought to himself, and reached for a second mug.


	84. Chapter 84

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have a craving for a sweet little Mycroft/Molly fic, if you don’t mind? Just something adorable with them maybe getting engaged, and Sherlock being a little twat, but all sweet :) xx – optimisticstorm

“But she’s… well. She’s female for one.”

“I have noticed Sherlock, yes,”  
  
“And it’s  _Molly_ ,”

“Again, nothing new, brother. I am aware of my intended’s name and indeed gender.”  
  
 “It’s just a rebound from me,” Sherlock huffed.  
  
 Mycroft’s smile was thin and overly pleasant. “I prefer to think of it as an upgrade,” he mused. “After all, you never showed her any interest and your intellect is dull in comparison.”

“Insulting my intelligence, brother  _dear_?”

A raised eyebrow. “Good, you noticed.”

“Boys, just stop it.”

Both brothers turned towards John in near-unison, raising eyebrows. “I’m allowed to discuss my own engagement, certainly?”

“Yes, but you’re currently enjoying antagonising each other, so both of you, stop it,” John continued, unperturbed by the two Holmes brothers and their parallel looks of disdain. “Mycroft, congratulations.”

Mycroft graced John with a genuine smile; John couldn’t help but feel rather alarmed by it, given that Mycroft  _never_  smiled properly. He tended to go for rather condescending or patronising smiles. An _actual_  smile just seemed rather creepy. “Thank you, John.”

“You’re welcome. Sherlock, stop being an arse.”

Sherlock grimaced, and took on the precise expression of a petulant child. John stared at him, challenging.

A resigned sigh, and a pout that boded badly for John’s chances of sex. “Congratulations on convincing somebody to marry you.”

“ _Sherlock_.”

“ _FINE_ ,” Sherlock practically yelled. “Mycroft, congratulations, hope you’re happy,” he snapped, and turned to John with a lethal expression. “Will that do?”

John smiled with obnoxious pleasure. “Well done, Sherlock, you’re growing as a person.”

Definitely no sex, John mused, as Sherlock sank into the sofa with a grimace and Mycroft looked sickeningly happy.

“We’re hoping for a June wedding.”

Sherlock made a noise of absolute disgust, and pulled a cushion over his face.


End file.
